First Look at Nickelodeon’s RISE OF THE TMNT

Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Well, this is certainly sure to split opinion. As the title suggests, Nickelodeon have revealed the first look at their central characters from the upcoming Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated series. Let’s just say that our beloved heroes look, err, interesting. Yes, definitely interesting…

For larger looks at Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, Michelangelo, Splinter, and April O’Neill, click on the images below:

Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Like we said. Err, interesting, right?

The current blurb on this new animated adventure reads:

In Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, fans can expect to see the brothers showcase their own skills and personality traits, from big brother Raphael’s enthusiastic bravado, to the cool charm and rebel heart of Leonardo, to the tech and mechanical genius Donatello, and finally, the wildly imaginative younger brother, Michelangelo, who knows a thing or two about skateboards.

To add a little further detail, Nickelodeon has given some information on the reimagining of the famed Heroes in a Half-Shell; Raphael is now a snapping turtle who goes to battle with his trusty twin tonfas; Leonardo is a red-eared slider turtle who wields an odachi sword; Donatello is a soft-shell turtle who is never without his tech-bo staff; and Michelangelo, well Mikey is a box turtle who sports kusari-fundo. Then there’s April O’Neill, who is pegged as a “savvy native New Yorker”, and Splinter being, well, Splinter.

Talent-wise, Omar Millers, Ben Schwartz, Josh Brener, Branddon Mychal Smith, Kat Graham, and Eric Bauza are the stars of the show, with 16-time WWE Champ John Cena signed on to voice an all-new reoccurring villain known as Baron Draxum.

Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles will debut later this year.

F. Gary Gray in Talks for MEN IN BLACK Reboot

Men in Black

In looks as if the upcoming Men in Black reboot is finally close to landing a director!

As per Deadline, Sony Pictures has reportedly decided that F. Gary Gray is the person best suited to relaunch this genre favourite franchise. The director is likely best known to genre fans for the likes of The Italian Job remake, Be Cool, Law Abiding Citizen, Straight Outta Compton and Fast & Furious 8.

Talks between both parties are believed to be still ongoing, although an agreement is expected to be reached and announced imminently.

Where this relaunch is concerned, neither Will Smith or Tommy Lee Jones will feature. Instead, the movie will look to explore the greater world of the original trilogy – making it a reboot-cum-spin-off of sorts, we guess. And just to be clear, this is a completely different picture to the MIB 23 crossover effort that was to see the Men in Black and Jump Street franchises coming together. Where that project is concerned, it now seems like it’s not going to happen, with Jonah Hill last year going public in saying that it’s just too complicated of a deal to put together.

For this Men in Black do-over, Transformers: The Last Knight’s Matt Holloway and Art Marcum have put together the screenplay, with Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald back to serve as executive producers alongside Steven Spielberg.

The currently untitled Men in Black reboot is set for a June 14th, 2019 release.

Octavia Spencer Joins Tate Tyler’s Horror MA

Octavia Spencer

With Tate Taylor’s Ma continuing to flesh out its cast, the upcoming horror effort has now brought in the Oscar-winning Octavia Spencer.

As per Variety, Spencer will join Juliette Lewis and Luke Evans in Ma. Spencer, of course, has previously worked with director Taylor on 2011’s The Help. In fact, it was for her role in The Help that the hugely talented actress grabbed the Best Supporting Actress gong at the 2012 Academy Awards. In addition to this, Spencer was nominated for that same award in 2017 for Hidden Figures, and has again been nominated for this year’s ceremony due to her performance in Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water.

Very little is known on Ma right now, although it’s being pegged as “a combination of a horror pic and a psychological thriller” by Variety. Tate Taylor himself has already teased plenty of “dark material” for the plot, and he’s now added that Spencer’s role in the film will be “the most complex character she’s ever played”. Her character will reportedly be a lonely sort whose friendship with some teenagers ends in “torturous consequences”. Yikes!

Jason Blum and his Blumhouse production company are behind the film, with Blum and The Help’s John Norris to serve as producers.

HBO Nabs J.J. Abrams New Sci-Fi Series DEMIMONDE

J.J. Abrams

With J.J. Abrams already having his fingers in so many pies, now comes word on yet another new project for the genre favourite.

As per The Hollywood Reporter, HBO has put in an order for Abrams’ sci-fi fantasy series Demimonde. The cable network managed to beat out Apple in a bidding war for the small-screen effort.

Abrams, of course, has quite the impressive record so far when it comes to his TV work. To date, he’s co-created the likes of Lost, Alias, Fringe and Felicity, not to mention he currently serves as executive producer on HBO’s phenomenal Westworld. For Demimonde, this marks the first time that Abrams will be writing a series since Fringe back in 2008.

So far, the early word on Demimonde has it pegged as focussing on a mother, father and daughter who are in a car crash. The matriarch of the family – who also happens to be a scientist – ends up in a coma due to the accident, and this leads to her daughter going through the mother’s science experiments. Somehow, the daughter ends up transported to another world where she finds herself battling “a monstrous, oppressive force”, and she’s soon joined by her father. The network has already labelled the series as “an epic and intimate sci-fantasy drama”, which well and truly puts Demimonde in STARBURST territory.

A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS to End After Three Seasons

A Series of Unfortunate Events

With Netflix’s A Series of Unfortunate Events set to premiere its second season next month, star Neil Patrick Harris has confirmed that the show will dish out three seasons and then call it a day.

As Harris explained to TV Guide, “We’re three seasons all in. We’ve intentionally been very truthful and factual and loyal to the books. We’ve added a few characters that aren’t in the books, we’ve added some songs that you probably couldn’t put into the books, but for the most part we’re sticking to the structure of what already worked.”

Fans have been speculating that the show could be capped at three seasons given how said Season 3 has already been confirmed to focus on the final books in the Lemony Snicket series.

If you’ve yet to check out this darkly comedic Netflix effort or aren’t familiar with the best-selling books from Lemony Snicket – aka Daniel Handler – the official word on this TV series reads:

Starring Emmy and Tony Award-winner Neil Patrick Harris, A Series of Unfortunate Events recounts the tragic tale of the Baudelaire orphans – Violent, Klaus, and Sunny – and their extraordinary encounters with the devious Count Olaf who will stop at nothing to get his hands on their inheritance. Foiling his many dastardly pans and disguises, the young siblings discover clues to their parents’ mysterious death, links to a covert organisation, and begin to unlock long-held family secrets.

In addition to Harris, the likes of Malina Weissman, Louis Hynes, Patrick Warburton and Presley Smith starred in the first season, and Season 2’s impressive new additions include Nathan Fillion, Lucy Punch, Roger Bart, and Tony Hale.

As mentioned, the second season of A Series of Unfortunate Events premieres on Netflix on March 30th.

Jim Parsons Joins Zac Efron’s Ted Bundy Movie

Jim Parsons

Last month saw several new faces join Zac Efron in the Ted Bundy-centred Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, and now Jim Parsons has been added to the picture.

Parsons, of course, is best known for his turn as uber-nerd Sheldon in The Big Bang Theory, and The Hollywood Reporter brings word that he’ll be playing Larry Simpson in the film. Simpson was the lead prosecutor of the 1979 trial that finally saw Bundy convicted. As well as Efron, the movie also has Lily Collins, Grace Victoria Cox, Jeffrey Donovan and John Malkovich signed up.

The early word on Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile has the effort pegged as “telling the story of the infamous serial killer, focusing on how a man’s routine traffic stop spirals out of control when he’s brought up on criminal charges, a process that reveals his vast crimes.”

To be directed by Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2’s Joe Berlinger, Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile has yet to be given a set release date.

Nicole Kassell to Direct WATCHMEN Pilot

Watchmen

With HBO having now put in a pilot order for Damon Lindelof’s Watchmen TV series, now comes word on who’ll be directing said pilot.

As per Deadline, Nicole Kassell has been given the nod to helm the first outing for this hotly-anticipated TV adaptation of one of the very best graphic novels of all time. Kassell will likely be best known to genre fans for her work on the likes of Westworld, The Leftovers and The Woodsman. In addition to this, she’ll also serve as executive producer alongside Lindelof.

Watchmen began life back in 1986 as a 12-issue miniseries from Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, soon going on to become a hugely acclaimed classic and a tale regularly cited as one of the greatest comic book/graphic novel stories of all time. A big screen adaptation finally happened in 2009, with Zack Snyder directing a huge blockbuster starring the likes of Billy Crudup, Malin Akerman, Jackie Earle Haley, Matthew Goode, Patrick Wilson, Carla Gugino, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan.

Said pilot is set to start shooting this March.

Don’t Expect FOX’s Marvel Characters in the MCU Any Time Soon

X-Men and Fantastic Four

With Disney having finally progressed with their purchase of 21st Century Fox, one of the elements of this deal that had fans most intrigued was the prospect of Fox’s Marvel characters turning up in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Now while that may happen at some point, don’t go expecting to see the X-Men, Fantastic Four, and Deadpool turning up in the MCU any time soon.

Marvel Studios’ Kevin Feige has been discussing that possibility while promoting this month’s Black Panther, and he gave his thoughts to Vulture. “I read about it in the press like most people did,” Feige said, “these are big deals, and certainly above my paygrade.”

He added, “The truth of the matter as I understand it is the deal has to be figured out. There’s been no communication. We’re not thinking about it. We’re focusing on everything we’ve already announced. If and when the deal actually happens, we’ll start to think more about it. Until then, we have a lot to do. It would be years away. We’ve announced everything through 2019, so none of those would be adjusted. I think about it through 2019, through the movies we’ve already shot or are about to start filming. I’m hoping to deliver on everything we’ve promised thus far.”

As alluded to, the House of Mouse and the MCU have plenty of pictures booked in for the next few years. Black Panther roars to the silver screen in a fortnight or so, then Avengers: Infinity War is next up this May. That huge ensemble will see Earth’s Mightiest Heroes joined by the Guardians of the Galaxy and any and all heroes worth their salt when Thanos finally steps out of the shadows. Following that, Ant-Man and the Wasp is booked in for July, then the Brie Larson-headlined Captain Marvel kicks off next year’s MCU projects in March 2019. After that, the Infinity War follow-up is set for May 2019, bringing Phase 3 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe to a close.

From there, the Spider-Man: Homecoming sequel is booked in for July 2019, and then there’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 planned for some point in 2020. In addition to that, there’s once more been rumblings of a solo movie for Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow, not to mention talk of another solo outing for Benedict Cumberbatch’s Doctor Strange.

If and when the X-Men, Fantastic Four and Co. do wind up in the MCU, it will be a huge deal – with most eagerly hoping that we’ll finally get to see Marvel’s First Family done right. For now, though, it looks as if these characters won’t be integrated into the MCU any time in the near future. That, of course, could change in an instant.

As ever, expect more on all of this as it continues to develop.

SUPER MARIO BROS. Animated Movie Announced

Super Mario Bros.

It’s-a me, Mario!

Yes, as the title suggests, a new Super Mario Bros. animated movie is now in development. Illumination Entertainment and Nintendo are teaming up on the picture.

The news was announced by Tatsumi Kimishima, who confirmed that Illumination CEO Chris Meledandri will produce the effort along with Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto. Universal Pictures will co-finance the film with Nintendo, and Universal will then handle the worldwide distribution of the movie.

No further details are known on this animated affair just yet, although we’d imagine it’s safe to presume that the likes of Luigi, Peach, Toad and the usual suspects will all be present and accounted for when the film makes its way to the big screen.

This won’t be the first cinematic outing for Mario et al, of course, with 1993’s live-action Super Mario Bros. mercilessly seen as an all-time turd amongst many moviegoers. That movie starred Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo, Samantha Mathis and Dennis Hopper.

As it happens, this isn’t the only Mario-driven news, with Nintendo having this week also announced a new Mario Kart mobile game dubbed Mario Kart Tour. That hotly-anticipated game is planned for March 2019.

Michelle MacLaren to Direct COWBOY NINJA VIKING

Cowboy Ninja Viking

One of the most hotly-anticipated movies of next year is the Chris Pratt-headlined big-screen adaptation of Cowboy Ninja Viking. And now, Universal Pictures has confirmed who’ll be directing this 2019 effort.

As per The Hollywood Reporter, Michelle MacLaren – best known to genre fans for her work on the likes of Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones, not to mention being the original pick to direct Wonder Woman before leaving the project over creative issues – has been tasked with helming what has the potential to be brilliantly bonkers in all the right ways. MacLaren reportedly beat Dope’s Rick Famuyiwa and Kung Fun Panda’s Jennifer Yuh Nelson for the gig.

The early blurb on the Cowboy Ninja Viking picture reads:

Chris Pratt will star a a new kind of assassin who manifests the toughest skills of three different personas: COWBOY NINJA VIKING. The hard-edged actioner laced with attitude is based on the Image Comics graphic novel by AJ Lieberman and illustrator Riley Rossmo.

At present, Cowboy Ninja Viking is set for a June 28th, 2019 release.