Ryan Reynolds to Star in DETECTIVE PIKACHU

Ryan Reynolds Detective Pikachu Pokemon

Well, this is some pretty major news, right? Yes, as the headline suggests, Ryan Reynolds has been brought in to take the titular role in the upcoming Detective Pikachu movie.

The Hollywood Reporter broke the news, with Reynolds joining a cast that currently includes Justice Smith and Kathryn Newton. No further details are known on the film or just how Reynolds will ‘play it’ just yet – although it’s a safe assumption that he’ll be providing the vocals for this beloved character.

Goosebumps’ Rob Letterman is on board to direct, with Nicole Perlman and Alex Hirsch having penned the screenplay.

This new movie will follow Detective Pikachu, who is a relatively new character to the Pokémon world, and comes in the aftermath of the huge success of last year’s Pokémon Go.

All that we know right now about Detective Pikachu is that it will follow the titular character as he attempts to solve various mysteries in a live-action setting. Universal Pictures will distribute the movie outside of Japan, with Toho handling duties in Japan.

As ever, expect more on all of this as it develops.

New Plot Details for JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom Poster

As we all eagerly await the first full trailer for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom to arrive on Thursday, we’ve now finally been given our first real story details for the hotly-anticipated picture.

Revealed to EW, it’s been confirmed that the film will take place several years after the events of Colin Trevorrow’s Jurassic World. By this point in time, Bryce Dallas Howard’s Claire Dearing has set up a new organisation called the Dinosaur Protection Group. It’s with this group that new additions Daniella Pineda and Justice Smith come into the action, for they’ll be helping Claire in her mission to somehow get the dinosaurs off the island which just so happens to have a live volcano about to run wild. And who does Claire turn to in her hour of need? Yep, you guessed it – Chris Pratt’s Owen Grady.

As mentioned, the first full trailer for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom will debut on Thursday – and you can expect to see it here on www.starburstmagazine.com as soon as it arrives ahead of the J.A. Bayona-helmed film’s June 22nd release.

Alice Eve Joins Season 2 of MARVEL’S IRON FIST

Alice Eve

While Finn Jones’ Iron Fist will next be seen in the second season of Marvel’s Luke Cage next year, now comes word on a new addition for Danny Rand’s solo series.

As per Marvel Entertainment, Alice Eve has joined Season 2 of Marvel’s Iron Fist in an unconfirmed role. Eve is likely best known to genre fans for her role in Star Trek Into Darkness. On her addition, Marvel’s Jeph Loeb enthused, “We are very excited to have an actress of Alice’s stature join the cast of Marvel’s Iron Fist. Her exceptional talent brings an intrigue and danger to her character unlike anyone else.”

Showrunner Raven Metzner added, “We’re over the moon that Alice Eve is joining us this season. We think she’s going to be a great addition to an already stellar cast.”

At this stage, there’s no premiere date confirmed for the second year of Iron Fist, although we do know that as well as Jones and Eve, Jessica Henwick’s Colleen Wing, Simone Missick’s Misty Knight, Tom Pelphrey’s Ward Meachum, Jessica Stroup’s Joy Meachum and Sacha Dhawan’s Davos will all be a part of the action as Danny and Colleen look to protect the Chinatown corner of New York City.

Expect more on all of Marvel’s Netflix-exclusive shows as we get it.

Rian Johnson Rules Out KNIGHTS OF THE OLD REPUBLIC Trilogy

Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic

When it was announced that Rian Johnson had been tasked with helming a new, upcoming trilogy of Star Wars movies, one particular corner of a galaxy far, far away that many longtime fans were hoping to see explored was the Knights of the Old Republic video game series. Sadly for those same fans, Johnson has moved to play down such speculation.

Speaking to Mashable, Johnson explained, “Oh, they love Knights of the Old Republic. I played that game when it first came out and it was like, god, I loved it. Yeah, that’s a fantastic game. And I understand it, the instinct to automatically go to something that you know and love, that you’ve already seen. To me, what’s really fund is the notion of what new stuff are we gonna see, what new stories can we tell?”

Previously, all we’d heard about this new trilogy was that it would focus on a corner of the galaxy not yet seen on the big screen. The Old Republic Era would certainly match up to that, with those Jedi and Sith-heavy tales taking place thousands of years before Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace. While those years would make for some compelling and fascinating movies, it seems that we can rule out seeing any attention given to those stories in Johnson’s new trilogy.

Up next for the Star Wars saga, of course, is the Johnson-helmed Star Wars: The Last Jedi – due in cinemas worldwide from December 14th.

Ridley Scott Eyeing a Robot-Driven Direction for the ALIEN Franchise

Alien: Covenant David

Whether we want it or not, it looks as if Ridley Scott is still eager to give us another Alien prequel effort. And not only that, but the legendary director is seemingly looking to take the famed genre franchise in a more robot-driven direction as oppose to focussing on Xenomorphs and the like.

Speaking to EW, Scott explained his plans for a third prequel effort: “I think what we have to do is gradually drift away from the alien stuff. People say, ‘You need more alien, you need more face pulling, need more chest bursting,’ so I put a lot of that in Covenant and it fitted nicely. But I think if you go again you need to start finding another solution that’s more interesting. I think A.I. is becoming much more dangerous and therefore more interesting.”

Given the poor box office return and response to Alien: Covenant, it looked as if we may not get another Alien outing from Scott, but seemingly there’s still more to come on that front.

To many, the hope is that Neill Blomkamp is one day allowed to do his oft-discussed Alien movie; a movie which would follow on from the events of Alien II and focus on Ripley, Hicks and Newt. While Blomkamp has shared out concept art from that potential picture, it seems as if the chances of that happening while Ridley Scott is still tasked with overseeing the Alien series are slim right now.

As ever, expect more on any and everything Alien as it continues to develop.

WONDER WOMAN Added to RAKUTEN TV Advent Calendar

wonder woman

Stuck for something to watch? VOD provider Rakuten TV is making a whole host of great films available from the first of December that include some of the best Yuletide classics of recent years, as well as the pick of this year’s blockbusters such as Wonder Woman and War of the Planet of the Apes. Some for as little as £2.49!

The full Advent Calendar of films is:

Fri 1st                                       War for the Planet of the Apes

Sat 2nd                                      Atomic Blonde

Sun 3rd                                     The Emoji Movie

Mon 4th                                    National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation

Tues 5th                                   Nativity 3: Dude, Where’s My Donkey?

Weds 6th                                  Despicable Me 3

Thurs 7th                                  Olaf’s Frozen Adventure (short)

Fri 8th                                       Girl’s Trip

Sat 9th                                      Captain Underpants

Sun 10th                                   Frozen

Mon 11th                                  Bridget Jones’s Diary

Tues 12th                                 Scrooged

Weds 13th                                The Hitman’s Bodyguard

Thurs 14th                                The Dark Tower

Fri 15th                                     Star Wars: Force Awakens

Sat 16th                                    Dunkirk

Sun 17th                                   Moana

Mon 18th                                  Spider-Man: Homecoming

Tues 19th                                 Wonder Woman

Weds 20th                                Dr Seuss ‘How The Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)

Thurs 21st                                The Muppet Christmas Carol

Fri 22nd                                    Beauty & The Beast 

Sat 23rd                                    Love Actually

Sun 24th                                   Home Alone

Mon 25th                                  Elf

Head over to Rakuten TV to check out the goodies on offer and stream a fantastic film this Christmas!

Quentin Tarantino to Helm a STAR TREK Movie?

Quentin Tarantino

Quentin Tarantino and Star Trek? Yep, you read that headline right.

As per Deadline, QT has had talks with Paramount over the direction of a new Trek effort. The outlet reports that Tarantino has explained his vision to the studio, with the plan now to bring a writing team together to see what they can come up with using this idea. If all goes to plan, it could well be that Tarantino ends up directing the film with J.J. Abrams producing.

Where this goes from here, we’ll all have to wait and see, but the thought of Quentin Tarantino helming a Star Trek movie is something that will excite many genre fans. And even those who aren’t keen on the idea should at least be intrigued as to just what the man behind Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, the Kill Bill duo, Death Proof, Inglorious Basterds, Django Unchained and The Hateful Eight could bring to the Star Trek franchise.

Right now, Tarantino is prepping his next movie over at Sony Pictures; a movie that will focus loosely around the timeframe of the infamous Manson Family murders. While no casting confirmation has come as of yet for that picture, Margot Robbie is QT’s top pick to play Sharon Tate, while the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise and Samuel L. Jackson have all been linked to the project.

As ever, expect more on all of this as we get it.

ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK Reboot Gets the Carpenter Seal of Approval

Kurt Russell Escape from New York Snake Plissken

It’s been a fair while since we’ve heard anything on the long-gestating Escape from New York redo – something that had many longtime fans hoping that the project had been completely scrapped – but now comes word that the iconic John Carpenter has given the proverbial thumbs up to the screenplay now in place for the reboot.

Screenwriter Neil Cross revealed the news, explaining to Deadline, “Robert Rodriguez is attached to direct and it’s looking good and exciting. It was quite a challenging script, it’s a challenging thing to reinvent. One of the most terrifying sentences I’ve ever heard in my life is ‘we’ve given the script to John Carpenter’. I crawled around for three days thinking ‘oh my god’ but we got John Carpenter’s seal of approval. He approved it and that’s all I need. You never quite know but I might need to do some rewrites and do some nip and tuck, but in the first approximation my job is done.”

Whether you’re keen on the idea of a new take on Escape from New York or not, the crux of this is that Carpenter giving the script the A-OK means that we should all brace ourselves for things to start moving forward once more on this redo.

As Cross mentioned, From Dusk till Dawn’s Robert Rodriguez is set to direct, although the more pressing topic for many is who could possibly take over the role of one of the coolest characters in all of cinema: Snake Plissken. Snake was famously played by Kurt Russell in 1981’s Escape from New York and its 1996 follow-up, Escape from L.A. Previously, names such as The Punisher’s Jon Bernthal and Sons of Anarchy’s Charlie Hunnam were believed to be amongst the frontrunners to play Plissken.

Expect more on the Escape from New York remake as and when it continues to develop.

Bryan Singer Fired From BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY

Rami Malek Freddy Mercury Biopic

In some surprising news, 20th Century Fox has fired director Bryan Singer from the upcoming Rami Malek-headlined Bohemian Rhapsody.

As of Friday, it was being reported that the production had been put on hold due to an unspecified health matter. Now, as initially broken by The Hollywood Reporter, Singer has been fired from the picture.

The original story on this stated that there was growing tension on set between singer and Malek – who is playing the legendary Freddie Mercury in the movie – but, while there seems to have been some sort of creative conflict between the pair at times, Singer has moved to confirm that he has indeed been fired and that it was due to one of his parents being unwell.

In a statement to Deadline, Singer explained:

Bohemian Rhapsody is a passion project of mine. With fewer than three weeks to shoot remaining, I asked Fox for some time off so I could return to the U.S. to deal with pressing health matters concerning one of my parents. This was a very taxing experience, which ultimately took a serious toll on my own health.  Unfortunately, the studio was unwilling to accommodate me and terminated my services.  This was not my decision and it was beyond my control.  Rumors that my unexpected departure from the film was sparked by a dispute I had with Rami Malek are not true.  While, at times, we did have creative differences on set, Rami and I successfully put those differences behind us and continued to work on the film together until just prior to Thanksgiving.  I wanted nothing more than to be able to finish this project and help honor the legacy of Freddie Mercury and Queen, but Fox would not permit me to do so because I needed to temporarily put my health, and the health of my loved ones, first

As alluded to, there’s just over two weeks of principal photography remaining on the film – meaning that Fox will be looking to find a new director ASAP. At this stage, the plan is still for Bohemian Rhapsody to hit the big screen in December 2018, but expect more on all of this as it continues to develop.

STARBURST launches BRAVE NEW WORDS Book Prize

BNW award

STARBURST Magazine, the world’s premier platform for new and exciting genre media, is pleased to announce that it will now have a prize for genre-related writing. The award ceremony will be part of The STARBURST Media City Festival.

The Brave New Words award is for someone who produces break-out literature that is new and bold. We are looking to highlight exciting work that breaks new ground in the field of Cult Entertainment.  Editors, writers, publishers, and bloggers can be nominated. We are looking for works produced in 2017. A shortlist will be announced early 2018 and the winner will be announced at The STARBURST Media City Festival, at Salford Media City 16th – 18th March 2018.

The panel of judges will be announced soon.

We are accepting nominations throughout 2017. The guidelines for submitting to the long list is below.

There is no submission fee for the Brave New Words award, nor is there a limit on the number of titles that can be submitted. Please bear in in mind that STARBURST is a magazine grounded in the field of Cult Entertainment and we are always highlighting indie and cutting-edge media.

The award goes to an individual, not a specific work, so we are looking for examples that most define the creators output.  We want full works: a complete novel or anthology or an example of the writer’s essays. For editors, we are looking specifically at collections the editor has curated. The judges will require a total of 6 physical copies (or one E-book.) We prefer electronic submissions in all cases.

The work must have been published in the UK (or online) during 2017. The deadline for E-books is January 30th, 2018, and the physical copies must arrive not later than January 20th.

The email address is [email protected] (marked BNW Awards) and the address to send physical publications is:

BRAVE NEW WORDS AWARD SUBMISSIONS

STARBURST MAGAZINE

PO Box 4508

Manchester

M61 0GY

Physical submissions must be clearly marked as intended for the award – mark the package and include a note with each copy.

Good luck to all of you, we’ll see you all at The STARBURST Media City Festival.