MCU Brings in New Blood for BLADE

blade

Marvel Studios revealed they were officially planning to incorporate the vampire slayer Blade into their cinematic canon back in 2019, and even then already had Oscar-winner Mahershala Ali signed on to star. Since that time news on the project’s progress has aptly remained in the shadows, but now comes news that it has chosen its writer in the form of playwright and screenwriter Stacy Osei-Kuffour.

Stacy Osei-Kuffour

Excitingly, Osei-Kuffour has previously worked on the hugely celebrated (and deservedly so) Watchmen from Damon Lindelof, the Al Pacino-starring Hunters on Prime, and the utterly brilliant, painfully well-observed Pen15. Excellent credentials, one and all.

Created in 1973 by Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan for the Marvel Comics series Tomb of Dracula, the character of Blade would go on to have the honour of being the first Marvel Studios film in 1998 (although the canon we know and love wouldn’t kick-in for another ten years). Mahershala Ali will be the third actor to portray the bat-battering badass on screen after Wesley Snipes yawned his way across the finish line with Blade: Trinity, and the delightfully named Sticky Fingaz, who headed up the short-lived Blade: The Series. Ali himself is no stranger to the MCU after giving an acclaimed performance as the villain Cottonmouth in Luke Cage. (And on that… isn’t it curious that Marvel Studios were quick to denounce the Netflix series from the MCU canon, but now look to be going out of their way to bend canon to incorporate characters and their respective actors from other studios? Just how bad were they treated by the streaming giant?! Anyhoo…)

Blade does not currently have a release date, but it’s tentatively expected to hit in 2022.

Source: THR

“Crank it All the Way Up!” New Trailer for FAST & FURIOUS 9 Hits

furious

STARBURST was initially hesitant to cover the Fast & Furious franchise when it started TWENTY years ago (that’s right, I was shocked too when I checked), but as the entries have racked up its reliance on heightened reality has been pushed so far, it’s recently gone full-on sci-fi with the genetically modified supervillain of Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw. So we think we’re in pretty safe territory to bring you the news that the long-delayed ninth entry, currently titled, erm, F9, has dropped a new trailer. Check it out below ahead of its pandemic-pending May 28th release…

 

New P.R.O.B.E. For DOCTOR WHO Fans

probe who

Back in the dark days pre-2005 when BBC TV’s Doctor Who had disappeared from television screens, enterprising fans took it upon themselves to fill the void left by the Time Lord’s absence by creating original audio and video content utilising licenced characters from the show’s history and popular actors from the series itself. One such series was P.R.O.B.E. – the Preternatural Research Bureau, which featured Caroline John reprising her role as Dr Elizabeth (Liz) Shaw, an assistant to Jon Pertwee’s Third Doctor during his first season in 1970. Created and directed by Bill Baggs for BBV Productions and with scripts largely written by Mark Gatiss, the straight-to-video/DVD series – which also featured guest appearances from Jon Pertwee, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, and Sylvester McCoy with other Who luminaries such as Louise Jameson, Sophie Aldred, Terry Molloy (Davros), Geoffrey Beevers, and Mark Gatiss’ League of Gentleman colleague Reece Sheersmith appearing in the initial releases – saw Liz Shaw and the  P.R.O.B.E. team investigating supernatural and preternatural mysteries in present day England. After Caroline John’s death in 2012, the role of Liz was recast and Hazel Burrows portrayed the character in a new production entitled When to Die, written and directed by Baggs.

Fans of the series will be pleased to learn that P.R.O.B.E. lives on in a new series of video diaries available exclusively on the BBV Productions YouTube channel with new episodes planned and with early access available to subscribers to the channel. This new video diary series will feature the same new P.R.O.B.E. team who will lead the forthcoming P.R.O.B.E.: Out of the Shadows short story anthology, published soon by Achbeatle Press.

You can check out the new P.R.O.B.E. video diaries here.

First Trailer Released for M. Night Shyamalan Secret Horror Film, OLD

m. night shyamalan

There haven’t been many filmmakers who can match M. Night Shyamalan in terms of his turbulent career – not so much in terms of quality, but rather the audiences’ constantly yo-yo-ing, love/hate relationship with him. Ignored completely with his debut film Prayer with Anger, he was heralded for his second, 1998’s The Sixth Sense. People flocked to his follow-up, Unbreakable, but by the time The Village revealed its twist in 2004, the masses had tapped out, and two films about wind on the bounce weren’t going to win anybody back. Returning to his lower budget roots with The Visit finally did the trick in 2015, and the love for Split the next year was near universal. A cheeky sequel to Unbreakable was surely going to cap off his renaissance… but no, Glass was far from a smash. While the handful of people with an Apple TV+ subscription seem to be enjoying his first auteured foray into telly with Servant, it’s impossible to tell where the movie-going public are at with their relationship to the filmmaker in 2021, but his new high concept horror, Old, due this summer, has now been unveiled and here at STARBURST we think it looks to have a whole lot of promise. We won’t spoil what Shyamalan has cooked up here before you’ve watch the trailer, but once you’ve cast your eyes over it, let us know whether you’re excited about it over on Twitter @STARBURST_mag

Emma Stone & Yorgos Lanthimos Reunite for Frankenstein Reimagining POOR THINGS

poor things emma stone

Who else loved Yorgos Lanthimos’ Oscar-winning The Favourite? Fans of the lesbian black comedy will be happy to hear that the Greek director is reuniting with star Emma Stone for a Frankenstein tale called Poor Things.

Adapted from Alasdair Gray’s 1992 novel of the same name, the story “follows the bizarre life of oversexed, volatile Bella Baxter, an emancipated woman, and a female Frankenstein. Bella is not her real name; as Victoria Blessington, she drowned herself to escape her abusive husband, but a surgeon removed the brain from the fetus she was carrying and placed it in her skull, resuscitating her. The revived Bella has the mental age of a child. Engaged to marry [Glasgow physician Archibald McCandless], she chloroforms him and runs off with a shady lawyer who takes her on a whirlwind adventure, hopping from Alexandria to Odessa to a Parisian brothel. As her brain matures, Bella develops a social conscience, but her rescheduled nuptials to Archie are cut short when she is recognised as Victoria by her lawful husband, Gen. Sir Aubrey Blessington.”

Stone will obviously play Baxter, while Lanthimos and Tony McNamara (who also co-wrote on The Favourite) will adapt the Scottish writer’s work for Searchlight Pictures, with production being eyed for an autumn 2021 start.

Emma Stone is not the only actress we’re looking forward to seeing lead a Frankenstein retelling, since it was announced last year that Scarlett Johansson would play the Bride of Frankenstein in  Sebastian Lelio’s Bride for Apple and A24.

Salma Hayek Developing Series About Talking Boobs

salma hayek a boob's life

Salma Hayek is developing an upcoming HBO Max series about talking boobs, based on the soon to be released Leslie Lehr memoir A Boob’s Life: How America’s Obsession Shaped Me… and You.

The half-hour comedy will tell the story of a woman named Leslie whose breasts start speaking to her ahead of her 40th birthday. Talk about a midlife crisis. Hayek will executive produce alongside Jose Tamez and Siobhan Flynn under their Ventanarosa Productions banner, with Cynthia Mort (known for her work on Roseanne and Will and Grace) serving as writer and showrunner.

In a statement to Deadline, Hayek expressed thanks that “HBO Max was insightful and bold enough to develop this show with us.” The actress and producer explains that “in A Boob’s Life, we use breasts as a metaphor for the constant judgement women are submitted to, creating a collective sensation that no matter what we do we are never enough. In this show, we give the breast a voice that takes us through the life of a woman from a unique perspective that often we don’t dare to see.”

No news yet on who might be playing Leslie, or who might voice the boobs. Does each boob get her own voice? It feels like they should.

 

UNO CARD GAME: THE MOVIE? Skip, Please.

uno the movie

Rapper Lil Yachty is developing an action heist comedy based on the card game Uno, and set in the underground hip hop world of Atlanta. There’s been no word yet on how exactly Uno plays into this, but this has to be enough to debunk the whole “capitalism breeds innovation” argument, right? Is Hollywood okay? Blink twice if you need help.

Just when you thought it couldn’t get much worse than Pixels or The Emoji Movie, our megacorp overlords do this. What’s more, Uno is just one in a long list of Mattel toys and games getting a feature adaptation. Already in the works are projects based on Barbie, Hot Wheels, Magic 8 Ball, American Girl, and Thomas & Friends, among others. Even Get Out star Daniel Kaluuya is getting in (sorry) on the action, set to produce a Barney the purple dinosaur feature, as are Margot Robbie, Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig with the upcoming Barbie Warner Bros. project.

Marcy Kelly wrote the screenplay for this Uno movie to be produced by Mattel Films, and Lil Yachty is reportedly being considered for the lead role. “I’m so excited to be part of this film with Mattel,” said the musician. “I played Uno as a kid and still do today, so to spin that into a movie based on the Atlanta hip hop scene I came out of is really special. It hits close to home for me.” At least someone is optimistic.

 

ETERNALS Director Chloé Zhao to Adapt DRACULA as a Sci-Fi Western

chloe zhao

Nomadland filmmaker and rising star Chloé Zhao, whose first blockbuster Eternals is slated for a November 2021 release, has an exciting new project to look ahead to: Zhao is teaming up with Universal Pictures to write, direct and produce a futuristic, sci-fi Western adaptation of… Dracula. That’s not where we thought that sentence was going either.

The director’s works so far have tackled themes of being on society’s fringes, with Songs My Brothers Taught Me depicting the relationship between a Lakota Sioux brother and sister; The Rider centring on a young man who suffers brain damage in a rodeo accident that ends his riding career; and Zhao’s most recent critical success, Nomadland, exploring the lives of nomadic workers travelling the American West.

This same theme is what drew the filmmaker to Universal’s Dracula project, stating that “I’ve always been fascinated by vampires and the concept of the Other they embody.” Universal Pictures president Peter Cramer echoes this sentiment, referring to Dracula as “one of the most iconic outsider characters ever created.”

This spin on Dracula is part of Universal’s move to revisit its most iconic monster films in more filmmaker-driven projects. The critical and commercial success of The Invisible Man last year proved this approach to be a good one, with Zhao just the latest filmmaker to be tapped for such a project. Other talents currently working on developing old monster IP’s include comedy legends Paul Feig and Elizabeth Banks, and genre favourite James Wan (The Conjuring, Insidious, Saw, Aquaman).

The campaign to cast Robert Pattinson as a space Dracula starts now.

DOCTOR WHO’s Matt Smith Returning to the BBC for Animated Xmas Special

Though Matt Smith’s role as a young Palpatine clone was mysteriously excised from the final cut of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, he’ll soon get a second chance to play something pale and wrinkly in a new animated special, Superworm.

The BBC is adapting Superworm from a 2012 children’s book by Julia Donaldson and Alex Scheffler, the author and illustrator team better known for the immensely popular property The Gruffalo. The Oscar-nominated Magic Light Pictures, who also adapted the latter title for the screen in 2009, will produce this tale, which tells the story of… actually there’s probably no need to explain it, you already get the idea from the title. There is an evil wizard with a crow henchman in it though!

The 11th Doctor will be joined by the likes of Olivia Coleman and Rob Brydon, with the special eyeing a Christmas 2021 release.

Source: Deadline

Jeffrey Wright Voicing BATMAN in HBO Max Podcast Series

batman

What with the re-jigged release date for The Batman, fans are in for a longer wait than planned to get their next on-screen Dark Knight fix, but there’s another project in the works that should go some ways to fill the Bat-shaped void in our lives. HBO Max have revealed that they’ve developed a Batman podcast that will put a comedic slant on the vigilante hero’s tales, with the cape and cowl being inherited this time by actor Jeffrey Wright.

Wright is of course famous for such celebrated genre roles as Felix Leiter in the Bond series, Bernard Lowe in the once-brilliant Westworld, and Beetee in The Hunger Games trilogy. He’s no stranger to superhero fiction either, as not only will he be voicing The Watcher for Marvel Studios’ What If…? on Disney+ later this year, but he’ll also be portraying James Gordon in the aforementioned Matt Reeves movie, The Batman. (Has anybody else ever taken dual roles in the same universe?)

Batman: The Audio Adventures, as it’s known, is written by Saturday Night Live veteran Dennis McNicholas and will feature an array of familiar voices such as Chris Parnell (Rick & Morty), Brent Spiner (Star Trek: The Next Generation), Paul Scheer (Star Trek: Lower Decks), Alan Tudyk (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story), John Leguizamo (Star Wars: The Mandalorian), Rosario Dawson (Star Wars: The Mandalorian), Jason Sudeikis (Star Wars: The Mandalorian), Fred Armisen (Star Wars: Resistance), Bobby Moynihan (Star Wars: Resistance), and Ray Wise (Twin Peaks).

There’s currently no date for when Batman: The Audio Adventures will arrive, but it will most certainly be before our next trip to Gotham in The Batman, which has a pandemic-pending March 4th, 2022 release date pencilled in. If the recent rumours of a HBO Max relaunch of Batman: The Animated Series come to pass, we’ve got a hell of a lot of Bat-related to get excited for. More news as we get it!

Source: THR