While any new live-action Addams adventures aren’t in the pipeline right now, the upcoming animated Addams Family movie has found itself a director.

As per Variety, Conrad Vernon has been brought in to helm the caper, and he’ll also serve as a producer alongside Gail Berman and Alex Schwartz. Vernon is likely best known for co-directing Sausage Party, and the last we’d heard he was signed on to direct the remake of Troma’s famed The Toxic Avenger.

The Addams Family, of course, began life back as a single-panel affair from Charles Addams before famously being given their own John Astin and Carolyn Jones-headlined TV series in the 1960s. Animated shows followed at various points, as did the live-action movies of the ‘90s which saw the likes of Raul Julia, Anjelica Huston, Christopher Lloyd and Christina Ricci join the sinister shenanigans.

Expect more on this new animated effort – seemingly just titled The Addams Family right now – as it continues to develop.

With Max Landis currently working on a remake of his father John’s iconic An American Werewolf in London, the talented young writer/director has been talking of his hope for some fan-pleasing cameos in his redo.

Speaking to Fandom at New York Comic Con about possible cameos, Max enthused, “Griffin Dunne. What about Jenny Agutter? Come on, Jenny’s killing it right now. She was in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. It made me so excited. Yeah, there’s cameos form ideally literally everyone.”

At this stage, Landis Jr is working on the script for a new take on the beloved 1981 movie, and he went on to add, “There’s no guarantee that movie will exist but I’m very excited about it. I’m not here to remake American Werewolf in London in to something it isn’t, I want to do everything from the original movie modern and that’s it. I mean, not Gus Van Sant’s Psycho. There will be my stuff in there, but if it exists I hope it’s good. I’m going to do my best to make it great.”

As ever, expect more on the new An American Werewolf in London as it continues to develop. And while we’re still not particularly sure that this huge genre favourite needs reworking, if anyone is a good choice to tackle it then it’s the excellent Max Landis.

One of the things that has us most excited for next year’s Halloween reboot is the involvement of the iconic John Carpenter. While Carpenter has long been confirmed to be on board as an executive producer and in a creative capacity, the legendary Horror Master has now revealed that, yes, he will also be providing the film’s score.

As soon as Carpenter was announced as joining the return of Michael Myers, there were plenty of rumours suggesting that JC could well end up providing the movie’s musical numbers. And now, that’s seemingly made official.

Speaking to Billboard, Carpenter explained, “I am an executive producer and it looks clear to me that I’ve made a deal to do the music. There are many options. I’ll be consulting with the director to see what he feels. I could create a new score, we could update the old score and amplify it, or we could combine those two things. I’ll have to see the movie to see what it requires.”

So there we have, as hoped, Carpenter will indeed be handling the score for the upcoming new outing for the famed Shape. As well as creating the much-loved, instantly recognisable music for the original Halloween, Carpenter also provided classic musical numbers for the likes of Escape from New York, They Live and The Fog.

As has been revealed over the past few weeks, this new Halloween will completely disregard anything but Carpenter’s 1978 original movie. Jamie Lee Curtis will be back as Laurie Strode, while Judy Greer has signed on to play her daughter, Karen Strode. David Gordon Green is on directing duties, while Green has put the story and script together with Danny McBride.

The early synopsis on the new film reads:

Laurie Strode comes to her final confrontation with Michael Myers, the masked figure who has haunted her since she narrowly escaped his killing spree on Halloween night four decades ago.

At present, the to-be-titled new Halloween effort is booked in for October 19th, 2018.

With Stephen King currently seeing a resurgence of sorts in the mainstream lately, yet another of his famed properties has now been given the nod for a big-screen adaptation.

As per Variety, King and Peter Straub’s The Talisman is to be adapted by The Fault in Our Stars’s Josh Boone. Boone – who is currently working on 20th Century Fox’s New Mutants – has initially been brought in to write the adap for Amblin Entertainment, although there’s a chance that he could end up directing the film, too.

The early word on all of this reads:

Based on the best-selling novel, the movie follows a boy, who in order to save his mother from certain death, enters a parallel world known as the Territories in search of a powerful talisman.

Previously, Amblin was developing The Talisman as a TV series, although those plans have now changed as the property will head to the silver screen instead.

Of course, this isn’t the first time that Josh Boone has been associated with Stephen King. Several years ago, King tasked Boone with writing and directing the latest adaptation of The Stand before that project was ultimately put on hold indefinitely. After that, King similarly picked Boone to write the adaptation of the author’s Revival; an adaptation that is currently in development.

As ever, expect more on all things King and all things Talisman as we get it.

Here at Moonbase Alpha, we’re huge fans of Bryan Bertino’s The Strangers. As such, we’ve been eagerly awaiting the long-gestating sequel for years – and now we’ve finally been given a release date and new title for the follow-up, not to mention a first look at Dollface stalking her prey.

To be directed by The Other Side of the Door and 47 Meters Down’s Johannes Roberts, Strangers: Prey at Night has been officially booked in for a March 9th, 2018 release. Christina Hendricks, Bailee Madison, Lewis Pullman and Martin Henderson will be serving as the poor souls tormented by the eerie Dollface, Pin-Up Girl and Man in the Mask – to be played by Emma Bellomy, Lea Enslin and Damian Maffei, respectively – this time out.

The official word on Strangers: Prey at Night reads:

A family’s road trip takes a dangerous turn when they arrive at a secluded mobile home park to stay with some relatives and find it mysteriously deserted. Under the cover of darkness, three masked psychopaths pay them a visit to test the family’s ever limit as they struggle to survive.

As for that first image, find the larger version of Bailee Madison’s Kinsey being stalked by Dollface below:

With filming now wrapped, it’s just a case of sitting back and waiting for a first trailer to drop before Strangers: Prey at Night arrives next March.

Following the success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it seems that everybody wants a piece of the shared universe pie these days. And now, Pacific Rim is the latest franchise to join the party.

Pacific Rim Uprising Steven S. DeKnight recently spoke to Nerdist, where he revealed that the March 2018 release will be the launching point for a shared cinematic realm. DeKnight explained, “The plan was always to use this movie as a launching pad. If enough people show up to this, we’ve already talked about the plot of the third movie and how the end of the third movie would expand the universe to a Star Wars/Star Trek-style [franchise] where you can go in many, many different directions. You can go main canon, you can go spin-offs, you can go one-offs. Yeah, that’s the plan. And I would love to see an animated TV show based on this.”

As well as the aforementioned MCU realm, recent years have seen Warner Brothers start their DC Extended Universe, Universal launch their new shared monster movie-verse with The Mummy, an expanded world for the Transformers franchise, and, as alluded to by DeKnight, the expansion of the Star Wars series to incorporate efforts such as Rogue One and the upcoming Han Solo-centric picture.

For Pacific Rim Uprising, the official word on that sequel reads:

The globe-spanning conflict between otherworldly monsters of mass destruction and the human-piloted super-machines built to vanquish them was only a prelude to the all-out assault on humanity in Pacific Rim Uprising.

John Boyega stars as the rebellious Jake Pentecost, a once-promising Jaeger pilot whose legendary father gave his life to secure humanity’s victory against the monstrous Kaiju. Jake has since abandoned his training only to become caught up in a criminal underworld. But when an even more unstoppable threat is unleashed to tear through our cities and bring the world to its knees, he is given one last chance to live up to his father’s legacy by his estranged sister, Mako Mori – who is leading a brave new generation of pilots that have grown up in the shadow of war. As they seek justice for the fallen, their only hope is to unite together in a global uprising against the forces of extinction.

Jake is joined by gifted rival pilot Lambert and 15-year-old Jaeger hacker Amara, as the heroes of the PPDC become the only family he has left. Rising up to become the most powerful defense force to ever walk the earth, they will set course for a spectacular all-new adventure on a towering scale.

Pacific Rim Uprising is currently set for a March 23rd, 2018 release.

Last month saw reports that Taika Waititi was being lined up to direct the long-gestating live-action Akira, and now the director himself has moved to confirm that he has indeed held discussions for the gig.

Speaking to IGN about whether he was going to direct Akira, Waititi explained, “I am – that was more or less a rumour. There was, I mean, I was in talks to do that, for sure, and something that I was very passionate about, am passionate about.”

He went on to add, “I actually love the books. Love the movie, but I would not do a remake of the movie. I would do an adaptation of the books. And, yeah, so anyway, there’s been some chats.”

On how he would handle things if he ended up directing the film, Waititi enthused, “Actually, Asian teenagers would be the way to do it for me and probably no, not, like no name. I mean sort of unfound, untapped talent. Yeah, I’d probably want to take it a bit back more towards the books.”

So, while Waititi is indeed playing coy there a tad, it certainly seems clear that there’s definitely something to those previous reports of the director having discussions to helm Akira. Here at Moonbase Alpha, we’ve been longtime champions of Waititi, so, while we’re not necessarily feeling the need for a live-action Akira, if it’s happening then Waititi would be an excellent choice.

Having become a favourite of many for efforts such as Eagle vs. Shark, Boy, What We Do in the Shadows and Hunt for the Wilderpeople, the New Zealander was given the task of directing Thor: Ragnarok – which hits cinemas across the globe this month.

As ever, expect more on all things Akira as the live-action take on this famed property continues to develop.