With Warner Brothers’ DC Extended Universe finally giving us a movie that we can all agree was outright stunning with this year’s Wonder Woman, the studio has now moved to update their release calendar – including adding two new releases to the schedule.

In an announcement, The WB confirmed 2020 release dates for two mystery DC-driven movies; one for February 14th and one for June 5th. In addition to that, Warners also confirmed an animated film for June 1st, 2018 and an untitled ‘event film’ for December 13th, 2019.

Of course, these films join a whole host of previously-confirmed DC pictures, although most of these already-announced movies are currently without release dates. In fact, the only films with release dates booked in right now are Zack Snyder’s Justice League this November 17th and James Wan’s Aquaman for December 21st, 2018.

Elsewhere, Matt Reeves’ The Batman has Joe Manganiello on board as the villainous Deathstroke to go up against Ben Affleck’s Caped Crusader, although this past week saw director Reeves reveal that he’s starting the movie’s story from scratch. Then there’s the Ezra Miller-headlined The Flash, currently in search of a director after both Seth Grahame-Smith and Rick Famuyiwa separately left the director’s chair over creative differences. Then there’s Ray Fisher to take centre-stage in Cyborg, the Dwayne Johnson-starring Black Adam, a Shazam! picture, the long-mooted Justice League Dark, and also the introduction of the Emerald Knights in Green Lantern Corps. .Throw in further solo outings for Henry Cavill’s Superman and Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman, a Suicide Squad sequel, and then David Ayer’s female-centric Gotham City Sirens, Joss Whedon’s Batgirl, and Chris McKay’s Nightwing, and there’s quite the selection of superhero and supervillain shenanigans to come. 

Previously, some of these films were given release dates by Warners, but a lot changed following the so-so response to Man of Steel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and Suicide Squad. Of course, Wonder Woman managed to break the cycle and gave us all a truly monumental DC movie, and so now Warner Brothers is once again a little more confident in the DCEU that they’re continuing to put together.

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

In some tragic news, we’re sad to report that George A. Romero has passed away after a “brief but aggressive battle with lung cancer”. He was 77 years old.

These days, the term legend is somewhat thrown around far too casually. Where Romero is concerned, he was and is a true legend of the horror genre and of filmmaking in genre. Simply put, if it wasn’t for his work then the horror landscape as we know it may well be very different.

Famously, Romero essentially created the zombie genre with 1968’s iconic Night of the Living Dead. Not only did that movie give a whole new meaning to the zombie tag – which at that point was largely associated more with voodoo – but it would prove to be a huge inspiration to aspiring young directors such as John Carpenter and Tobe Hooper, highlighting that you didn’t necessarily need a big budget to deliver huge scares, nail-gnawing tension, and explore themes of social commentary. While that picture also happened to spawn a whole host of copycat movies, it also led to sequels in the shape of 1978’s Dawn of the Dead, 1985’s Day of the Dead, 1990’s Land of the Dead, 2007’s Diary of the Dead, and 2009’s Survival of the Dead. In fact, Romero had recently been developing the next entry in the franchise, the Matt Birman-directed Road of the Dead. But while it’s his zombie work for which he’s most famous, George also gave us so many other delights; delights such as 1973’s The Crazies, 1978’s Martin, 1981’s Knightriders, and the 1982’s classic Creepshow.

According to longtime producing partner Peter Grunwald, George passed away in his sleep while listening to the score from one of his favourite films, 1952’s The Quiet Man. His wife Suzanne and daughter Tina were at his side.

The thoughts of all here at STARBUST go out to the family, friends, and fans of the truly legendary Godfather of the Dead, the one and only George A. Romero. Rest in peace, fine sir, and thanks for the memories.

What a horrible weekend. As well as George A. Romero passing away at the age of 77, we’re also saddened to report that Martin Landau passed away on Saturday afternoon after unexpected complications during a short hospital stay. He was 89.

After initially starting out as a cartoonist, Landau made the jump in to acting in the 1950s, and he went on to work on hugely popular movies and TV efforts such as Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest, Cleopatra, Nevada Smith, Mission: Impossible, The Twilight Zone, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Space: 1999, Tucker: The Man and His Dream, Crimes and Misdemeanors, and The X-Files. To many, of course, he is best remembered for his fantastic performance as Bela Lugosi in Tim Burton’s Ed Wood; a performance that nabbed him an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in 1995. Famously, Martin also turned down the role of Spock in the original Star Trek series, instead happy for the role to go to his friend Leonard Nimoy.

The thoughts of all here at STARBURST go out to the family, friends, and fans of the prolific and truly special Martin Landau. Rest in peace, sir.

After months of speculation, Disney has finally moved to announce three of the key cast members for their upcoming live-action Aladdin remake.

First and foremost, as rumoured for months, Will Smith will indeed be playing the Genie. Smith has long been tipped for the role, and now it’s finally official that he’ll be tackling a character brilliantly brought to life by the iconic Robin Williams in the 1992 animated Aladdin. Joining the Fresh Prince in the picture will be Mena Massoud – soon to be seen in the Jack Ryan TV series – as the titular Aladdin, whilst Power Rangers’ Naomi Scott has bagged the role of Jasmine in the redo. Guy Ritchie is on board to direct.

At present, this new take on an old favourite is currently in pre-production, with shooting expected to start by the end of the year.

As well as Aladdin, Disney currently has the Jon Favreau-directed, Donald Glover, Seth Rogen, John Oliver, and James Earl Jones-starring live-action Lion King in development, and then the House of Mouse has recently moved to confirm plans for live-action redos of Dumbo and Mulan, with Tim Burton confirmed to tackle Dumbo.

With James Cameron currently working away on his four Avatar sequels, we’re all largely still pondering just why the legendary director really needs to be doing four sequels. Well, Sigourney Weaver has moved to try and answer that very question.

Speaking to EW, Weaver, who will be reprising her Dr. Grace Augustine role for the follow-ups, explained, “There’s a very good reason why it turned out to be four sequels. Having read all four of them, I think they’re absolutely extraordinary and worth the wait. These films are very much about the peril of this beautiful planets, and he is continuing the same themes of greed and callousness of the corporations and plight of the indigenous people. At this point, after a long and very satisfying career – I can’t believe it’s been 40 years, but anyway – I’m very excited to be able to work on these four stories. I can really, really appreciate it.”

Weaver continued, “It’s the most ambitious project by far I’ve ever been involved in, and the most moving, the most astonishing, beautiful. I think all of us who get to be a part of it are just in awe when we see the artwork. It’s just incredible to be living now when we can bring this kind of film experience to the public. Because I think as much as Avatar changed what people want in a film experience, this goes a hundred times farther.”

Ambitious? Undoubtedly. Needed? Not quite. Still, Jim Cameron has deemed it necessary to give us four Avatar sequels, and that is exactly what we’ll get. With all four movies being done back-to-back-to-back-to-back, pre-production has been happening over in New Zealand since April, with shooting currently set to commence on September 25th.

As well as Weaver, Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, and Joel David Moore will be returning for these sequels, and they’re joined by Cliff Curtis and Oona Chaplin.

After previous release dates were pushed back several times, the current plan is for Avatar 2 to arrive in December 2020, Avatar 3 for December 2021, Avatar 4 for December 2024, and Avatar 5 for December 2025.

Regardless of the largely paper-thin plot, Avatar was unquestionably a huge movie. Being the first picture to really embrace, refresh, and reinvent the concept of 3D filmmaking since the initial 3D semi-boom of the 1980s, Avatar was a must-see cinema experience just for how unique and game-changing it was. As such, the 2009 release took home a whopping $2.7 billion in global box office, which still has Avatar easily sat as the highest grossing film in worldwide cinema history.

But still, four sequels…?