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MAN IN A SUITCASE Graphic Novel in the Works

A new graphic novel is to be published in early 2022 featuring the hero of the cult 1960s TV series Man in a Suitcase.

In the late 1960s, British television brought us a glorious variety of weekly action-adventure series. The Saint, The Champions, Department S, Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased), The Prisoner, and many more. An exciting mix of secret agent, private detective, and sci-fi fantasy. One of the most underrated series was Man in a Suitcase, starring American actor Richard Bradford. Lasting only one series, we saw McGill, a disgruntled, world-weary but caring, ex CIA agent making a living as a private detective in swinging sixties London. He has a moral compass, and his clients always get the McGill they deserve.

The graphic novel will feature a brand new adventure for McGill, based on an un-filmed original script by legendary writer Roger Marshall, who worked on many top TV series, including The Avengers, The Sweeney, The Professionals, and also created the long-running and hugely popular Public Eye.

The Haunting finds McGill investigating strange goings-on in a sleepy English village, and will be adapted by Roger’s son, Rodney Marshall, with original artwork by Brian Gorman.

Brian’s previous graphic novels include Everyman: A Celebration of Patrick McGoohan and The Prisoner, New Dawn Fades: Joy Division and Manchester, Animus, and Borderliners: True Realties. He is also an award-winning actor for his stage production One Man Bond: Every Bond Film in 60 Minutes, which he performed at the STARBURST Media City Festival in 2018.

A new crowdfunding campaign gives fans a fantastic opportunity to be part of an exciting team, resurrecting one of British television’s most iconic, and much-missed cult heroes. Perks for contributors include signed copies of the book, their names immortalised in a special ‘Thanks To’ section, an opportunity to be drawn as a supporting character, original sketches, original pages of artwork from the book, and an invitation to a special launch party.

More details on the crowdfunder can be found at Man in a Suitcase: The Haunting.

Eat Peace, Motherf*****! PEACEMAKER Releases Official Trailer & Release Date!

After a fun teaser released at the HBO Max European launch event, Peacemaker has finally released its full official trailer. The series, written and directed by James Gunn and starring John Cena in the title role, explores the continued story of Christopher Smith/ Peacemaker in the aftermath of Gunn’s explosive The Suicide Squad.

The upcoming eight-part series also stars Danielle Brooks as Leota Adebayo, the series’ co-lead, Freddie Stroma as the district attorney and crimefighter Vigilante, Jennifer Holland as NSA agent Harcourt, Chukwudi Iwuji as the mercenary and Task Force X leader Clemson Murn, Steve Agee as the Belle Reve warden John Economos, and Robert Patrick as Peacemaker’s dad Auggie Smith, and is now confirmed to debut January 13th with its first three episodes.

It also looks like we’ll be getting a lot more of Peacemaker’s pet bald eagle, Eagly. Petition for more animal sidekicks in the DC and Marvel cinematic ‘verses!

Catch up with the world’s biggest douchebag as he and his team save the fucking world, on HBO Max January 13th. Watch the trailer below:

Peacemaker

Dystopian Fantasy UGLIES Casts Laverne Cox

Uglies novel cover from Scott Westerfeld

Laverne Cox, best known for her roles in Promising Young Woman and the long-running Orange Is the New Black, is the latest addition to the cast of Uglies, a dystopian fantasy directed by McG (The Babysitter, Rim of the World) from a screenplay by Krista Vernoff (Charmed).

Based on Scott Westerfeld’s 2005 international bestselling novel of the same name, the upcoming Netflix adaptation is set in a post-scarcity dystopian world in which a compulsory, extreme cosmetic surgery operation at sixteen makes everyone pretty. It tells the story of a teenager named Tally Youngblood, who rebels against society’s enforced conformity and beauty standards after her friends show her the downsides of becoming a so-called “Pretty”.

Cox joins a cast led by Joey King – who also executive produces – as the protagonist Tally, which also includes Keith Powers (The Tomorrow War), Brianna Tju (I Know What You Did Last Summer) and Chase Stokes (Outer Banks) in as-of-yet undisclosed roles.

Though no release date has been announced, Uglies’ current production status suggests an estimated release in late 2022.

Uglies

THE PALE BLUE EYE Adds Gillian Anderson, Robert Duvall & More

The Pale Blue Eye casts Gillian Anderson, still from The X Files

Scott Cooper’s Netflix film The Pale Blue Eye has added a crowd of wonderful actors to its slate, which had already announced Christian Bale and Harry Melling.

Based on the Louis Bayard 2006 novel of the same name, the Gothic thriller centres on a young cadet named Edgar Allan Poe, as he gets wrapped up in a series of murders at the United States Military Academy in West Point, in 1830. Melling with play Poe, while Bale will lead the cast as Augustus Landor, a former police detective who the Academy calls upon to keep the case quiet. Poe and Landor find themselves working in close contact to unravel this mystery, which takes them into a world of secret societies, ritual sacrifice, and more death.

Joining Bale and Melling on the call sheet are – and here’s where we advise you to take a deep breath – Gillian Anderson (The X Files, Hannibal), Lucy Boynton (Murder on the Orient Express, Bohemian Rhapsody), Charlotte Gainsbourg (Antichrist, Nymphomaniac: Vol I & II), Toby Jones (The Hunger Games, the MCU), Timothy Spall (Electric Dreams, Harry Potter franchise), and Oscar-winning actor Robert Duvall (The Godfather, Apocalypse Now), as well as Hadley Robinson (Moxie), Joey Brooks (Molly’s Game), Harry Lawtey (Industry), Simon McBurney (Carnival Row), Brennan Keel Cook (Encounter), Gideon Glick (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel), Fred Hechinger (Fear Street, The Woman in the Window), Matt Helm (The Tragedy of Macbeth), Steven Maier (The Plot Against America), and Charlie Tahan (Ozark).

The Pale Blue Eye marks Cooper’s third collaboration with Bale, following Hostiles and Out of the Furnace. Other than Bale (who also produces the film) and Melling, there has been no information disclosed as to the roles which the newly-added cast members will play.

Scott Cooper most recently directed the horror indie Antlers, and is best known for the Jeff Bridges-starrer Crazy Heart.

The Pale Blue Eye

Stan Lee Horror Stories Are Getting Their Own Cinematic Universe

Stan Lee at the Phoenix Comicon in Phoenix, Arizona. Photo by Gage Skidmore

A new cinematic universe is in the works, based on the little-known horror works by Marvel’s Stan Lee. Timur Bekmambetov (Abram Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, Wanted) will helm the overall project and produce with his company, alongside ZQ Entertainment.

“Some fans may not know this, but Stan Lee wrote several horror comic book series in the 1940s and 1950s before superhero comics became big in the 1960s,” explained Gill Champion, POW! Entertainment’s president – a company co-founded with Lee himself, which will executive produce the project. “Stan relished revisiting the genre a few years ago when he wrote these stories, and we are excited to bring them to life with a director as visionary as Timur Bekmambetov. We think fans will be surprised to experience a darker side of Stan Lee that they’ve never witnessed before!”

The first two films announced in this deal are Carnival of Killers, with a script by Starry Eyes and Pet Sematary filmmakers Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer, and Sawbones, to be written by Matt Greenberg (co-writer on Pet Sematary as well as Reign of Fire and 1408).

Carnival of Killers is set amid the Dust Bowl storms that ravaged the American Great Plains in the 1930s. The horror movie centres around a young girl with psychic abilities who senses that the traveling carnival she and her mother sought refuge in is ground zero for a looming alien invasion. Aliens and creepy clowns? Sign us up.

Meanwhile, Sawbones follows a frail 12-year old named Alex Covin, who reads a mysterious comic book and is suddenly transported into its terrifying world: a haunted Juvenile Detention Centre overrun by demonic forces led by Sawbones, a homicidal entity who preys upon the troubled inmates. Has Alex gone insane? Or is this nightmarish world his new reality? If he is to escape, Alex must find a way to defeat Sawbones – but he quickly comes to realize that the entity is the keeper of his darkness, and the personification of all his fears.

These can’t come soon enough! Further details as we get them.

Stan Lee

Medusa Horror Takes A Closer Look At The Snake-Haired Gorgon

Uma Thurman as Medusa in Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief

An untitled horror movie based on the Gorgon Medusa is being developed at Fangoria Studios (which launched January of this year), which aims to take a closer look at the popular Greek mythical figure whose gaze turns men to stone. Deadline reports that Anna Chazelle (Narrow, Anemone) will write, direct, and executive produce on the project.

“It’s easy to demonise Medusa, but her story is filled with justifiable feminine rage, both at the gods who created her and the mortals who seek to destroy her,” stated Chazelle. “I’m excited to dive into the tale of her nascence into the Greek pantheon and hopefully challenge the widely-accepted definition of Medusa as a mere monster.”

Medusa has indeed been a long-misunderstood figure. Most popularly regarded and depicted as a monstrous creature (see for example 1981’s Clash of the Titans, or The Lightning Thief), she was beheaded by the Greek hero Perseus, who used her head as a weapon until he gifted it to the goddess Athena to place on her shield.

Ovid’s Metamorphoses however, hints at a much darker origin story: originally a beautiful maiden, Medusa was raped by Neptune/Poseidon in Minerva/Athena’s temple. Upon learning of the act, Athena chooses to punish the victim, transforming her beautiful hair into hideous snakes.

The myth has been altered and retold many times throughout history to reflect contemporary sentiments. In the 19th century for example, Medusa became a symbol of liberty post-French Revolution and was used as a popular emblem of Jacobinism; regarded as a victim of tyranny, she held her own kind of revolutionary power.

More recent portrayals and analyses of Medusa, particularly post-#MeToo, have tended to look more kindly upon her – a statue by Luciano Garbati depicting the Gorgon holding Perseus’ decapitated head, for instance, became an avatar of female rage for the MeToo movement. Things have moved a little slower in pop entertainment, but a recent example of changing views appears in the rebooted series Charmed, where Medusa is summoned to punish members of a fraternity for slut-shaming a young girl; instead of killing or banishing her, Macy (one of the protagonists) expresses empathy with her pain as a rape victim and convinces Medusa to undo her damage.

Let’s just say that we’re looking forward to seeing what Chazelle does with this blank canvas.

Medusa

Cyberpunk Indie THE DRESDEN SUN Adds Steven Ogg

Steven Ogg as Simon in The Walking Dead will star in The Dresden Sun

Snowpiercer and Westworld actor Steven Ogg will star alongside Christina Ricci (The Matrix Resurrections) and Samantha Win (Army of the Dead) in The Dresden Sun, a cyberpunk indie film from writer-director Michael Ryan (Interpreters, The Silencer & the Sky) said to combine elements of science fiction, thriller, and action genres.

The premise is as follows: A heist goes south when a brilliant, principled mercenary (Ogg) with a traumatic history works with an insider to steal a valued commodity from Peredor Corporation called “the sphere”. The C & Earth corporation vying for global dominance seeks to find a solution to an otherworldly technology for a scientist’s project.

Meanwhile, a financial analyst, who despises his job at the powerful investment firm Mutual One, is caught in the middle between deadly corporate rivals, financial fraud, and technological espionage, forcing him to run from the most psychopathic military contractor in the world.

While Deadline reports that Ogg plays The Dresden Sun’s protagonist Crilenger, Win stars as the mysterious ‘Z’ and Ricci plays Dr. Dresden Corliss, the inventor of a cosmic technology who is grieving over the recent death of a loved one.

The Dresden Sun

Nicolas Cage Is None Other Than Count Dracula

Nicolas Cage in Vampire's Kiss, will star in Renfield

The wish you never knew you made came true: Nicolas Cage is Dracula in Universal Pictures’ monster movie Renfield. The cult favourite actor joins Nicholas Hoult – who stars as the titular character, the vampire count’s infamous henchman and former inmate – in the feature directed by Chris McKay (The Tomorrow War, The Lego Batman Movie), with Rick and Morty’s Ryan Ridley penning the script based on a story from The Walking Dead’s Robert Kirkman. The movie was originally set to be directed by Dexter Fletcher.

The character of Renfield began as an asylum patient obsessed with drinking blood, believing that by consuming animals’ blood he was also absorbing their life force, so that he might find immortality. Dracula offers him a deal: that if Renfield worships him, he will grant him everlasting life. It’s unclear how closely Renfield will follow the dynamics of Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel, as plot details are currently being kept dead quiet, but we do know that the project is being described as a modern-day adventure story that is comedic in tone.

This marks Cage’s big return to blockbusters movies, having strayed from the mainstream after 2011’s Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance and starring in a number of excellent indie films such as Color Out Of Space, Mandy, and Pig. This won’t be Cage’s first time sporting some fangs, having previously starred in the 1988 horror-comedy Vampire’s Kiss.

Renfield is part of Universal’s ongoing attempt to revive its cult ‘Universal Monsters’ franchise from the 1930s-50s, with planned projects so far including a Dracula film from Jennifer’s Body director Karyn Kusama, another Dracula take from Chloe Zhao, a Frankenstein adaptation from James Wan, one starring Ryan Gosling as the Wolfman, to name but a few.

Nicolas Cage Renfield

STAR WARS: AHSOKA Adds Ivanna Sakhno To Cast

Pacific Rim: Uprising actress Ivanna Sakhno has been cast opposite Rosario Dawson and Natasha Liu Bordizzo in the Disney+ series Star Wars: Ahsoka. A spinoff from the hit show The Mandalorian, the series chronicles the continuing adventures of Jedi warrior Ahsoka Tano; it stars Dawson as the titular character, while Bordizzo takes on Sabine Wren, a character previously confined to the animated realm in Star Wars Rebels.

Deadline, who broke the news, report that Sakhno will play a newly created character, though there is no further information as to who they might be. The series is currently looking to begin production in March of next year and is also expected to see Hayden Christensen reprising his role as Anakin Skywalker (though most likely in flashbacks, given the timeline).

Sahko is best known for Uprising, The Spy Who Dumped Me, and for this year’s horror-thriller Let It Snow.

For now though, Star Wars fans can look forward to the imminent release of The Book of Boba Fett.

ahsoka

Tom Holland’s Spider-Man Isn’t Going Anywhere

Tom Holland as Peter Parker/Spider-Man in Avengers: Infinity War

Despite rumours that Spider-Man: No Way Home would mark Tom Holland’s last banner outing as Peter Parker within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, producer Amy Pascal confirmed this would not be the case.

In a recent interview with Fandango, Pascal emphasised that “this is not the last movie that we are going to make with Marvel – [this is not] the last Spider-Man movie.” She continues, “we are getting ready to make the next Spider-Man movie with Tom Holland and Marvel. We’re thinking of this as three films, and now we’re going to go onto the next three. This is not the last of our MCU movies.”

Reportedly however, Sony insiders state that despite good intentions, there are still no officials plans for another trilogy at this point in time. Now, not to dive back into the deep end of intellectual property law, but a quick recap of the whole Sony/Marvel custody battle over our favourite web-slinger: Sony has controlled the film rights to Spider-Man for a while, having made five films starring the Queens native between 2002 and 2014. In 2015, Sony and Marvel unveiled an exciting and unprecedented partnership which allowed Spider-Man to appear in the MCU, beginning with Captain America: Civil War, and would continue with a series of Marvel-produced Spider-Man films to be released by Sony. Still with us?

Here’s where things get a little more complicated. Not long after the release of Tom Holland’s second standalone Spider-Man film under the Marvel/Sony deal, Far From Home, the deal between the studios appeared to fall apart. Then in September 2019, Sony and Marvel revealed they had reached a new agreement, one which would allow Holland to wrap up his existing standalone trilogy (in which No Way Home would be the last of the three) and also appear in one more MCU film.

Pascal’s comments give fans hope that Sony and Marvel may re-negotiate and further expand their Spider-Man deal, hopefully with Holland still attached. After all, the ties between both studios’ universes keep growing more complex. Sony has its own universe of Marvel characters that are becoming increasingly entangled with Marvel’s MCU: Jared Leto’s Morbius is due next year, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson is set to star in a Kraven the Hunter film (yes, the same Taylor-Johnson who played the not-so-Quicksilver in Avengers: Age of Ultron – but let’s cross that bridge when we get to it). Then of course there’s Venom: Let There Be Carnage, in which the post-credits scene sees Tom Hardy’s Eddie Brock enter the MCU, and the fact that a bunch of non-MCU Marvel villains will soon be making their comeback in No Way Home.

In short, there’s a lot to be excited about, and plenty of cause for optimism that Holland’s involvement will be long and prosperous… wait, that’s not it.

Anyway, Spider-Man: No Way Home releases in UK cinemas December 15th, and everywhere else December 17th. Check out the trailer here.

Spider-Man: No Way Home