Film & TV Industry News for August 15, 2015
Disney’s D23 Expo Animation and Pixar panel had a bunch of reveals, including new movies Gigantic (a Jack and the Beanstalk musical re-telling from the Frozen people) and Coco (basically, Disney’s version of the Guillermo del Toro-produced Day of the Dead movie The Book of Life) as well as new images from Zootopia, Moana, Inside Out, The Good Dinosaur and Finding Dory:
The biggest news, outside of the reveal of Gigantic, was about Toy Story 4. It’s a film Disney Chief Creative Office and director John Lasseter (seen above with Randy Newman) promised would never happen after the ultra-successful first trilogy, unless there was an idea good enough.
We didn’t know what that idea was until today, and it’s this: A love story between Woody and Bo Peep. Bo is missing from Toy Story 3, written out in a throwaway line, and Toy Story 4 will see Buzz Lightyear and Woody go on an adventure to find the love of Woody’s life. Toy Story 4 will be released June 16, 2017.
Wolverine 3 is due out March 3, 2017. Last we checked, Hugh Jackman was trying to crowd-source the script, even though all they really need to do is simply adapt “Old Man Logan” and call it good, especially since Days of Future Past probably erased almost all of The Wolverine from existence (no more adventures with Yukio!). Now, Patrick Stewart has again re-iterated that Wolverine and Professor X might be in store for their own buddy adventure, telling a roundtable of reporters:
“They are in the middle of filming [X-Men: Apocalypse]. I went up to pay them a visit in Montreal a couple of weeks ago… the next X-Men movie, but that will be inhabited by Jennifer Lawrence and Michael fassBender and James Mcavoy. The X’s, not Ian Mckellen and Patrick Stewart. Um, but there is I am told a Wolverine movie in development that would include Charles Xavier, but in a very different Charles Xavier than the one we have seen before. And I don’t quite know what that means, but I am very very excited about it. I love Hugh and I love working with him and James Mangold I believe is set to direct and he is terrific so we shall see.”
If you have never seen Bored to Death – about a failed novelist (Jason Schwartzman) turned really lousy private detective – borrow someone’s HBO Go information and go stream it right now. I’ll wait. Are you back? Wow you streamed three seasons of TV in record time. Well, now prepare to be crushed because the show’s creator, Jonathan Ames, is sounding more and more realistic (as opposed to optimistic) about the chances of a Bored to Death wrap-up movie ever happening, telling Zap2it:
I actually wrote two Bored to Death movie scripts. Then [Ames’ new Starz series Blunt Talk] kind of took over my life. It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that it could yet happen. I guess the further time goes on, I guess the chance weakens. I guess if interest remains.
I just have to write a script that I’m really happy with. I thought the first one I wrote I was really happy with, but maybe HBO had issues. I still am contractually obligated to write one more draft, so it could happen.
Jason, Ted [Danson] and Zach [Galifianakis], they all wanted to do it. They all love the show, they love the characters. They all, at least initially, were completely on board. Now time has passed, their careers are busy, but it could potentially work. They all wanted to do it. Zach cried. When he saw the email that the show was canceled, he cried onto his keyboard, he said.
In addition to its pilot about DC Comics characters as boring office workers, NBC has also ordered a pilot about foul-mouthed puppets, which instantly gets my attention because have you seen Angel’s “Smile Time” or the Broadway musical Avenue Q? Deadline says:
In the vein of The Larry Sanders Show (but with puppets), Bumbleberry Lane is described as a big ensemble comedy in which a group of misfits working at a public television children’s show try to prevent their messy personal lives from spilling over into their jobs, sometimes resulting in puppets behaving badly. The R-rated show behind the G-rated show.
The producer of a forthcoming Predator sequel has “read a lot of [Shane Black’s] script” and thinks “it’s genius.” Let me say that again: He hasn’t read the whole script, but a lot of it. Producers, man. We don’t have a release date, and we don’t really know for sure what to expect other than Black previously calling this more of an “inventive sequel” than reboot. The producer is happy to remind us that this is a movie which is still happening:
I think [Black’s script] is entertaining, and what it did is recreate a famous franchise in a different, interesting way; looking at it from a different light. He’s just an amazing writer-director. He’s got a way of looking at this that makes you excited again.
Thanks to Straight Outta Compton’s better-than-expected opening, Universtal Pictures will hit $2 billion at the North American box office this weekend, the fastest time that any studio has ever reached that figure. The previous record holder was Warner Bros., which crossed $2 billion on December 25, 2009, and ultimately set the all-time domestic record with a gross of $2.1 billion that year. Yeah, Universal is going to demolish that. It pays to have Jurassic World, Furious 7, Minions, Fifty Shades of Grey and Pitch Perfect 2. You hear that, Hollywood – everyone at Universal is better at their job than you.
A lot of people are really, really bent out of shape over Sesame Street’s deal with HBO, and possibly for good reason since this will limit the show’s accessibility even though it will still continue to air on PBS. It’s a deal PBS had to make because they are desperate for funding. Now do you feel guilty for not buying that tote bag?
One of those naked background girls from Game of Thrones is an active porn star [stage name: Samantha Bentley], and she told Cosmo about openly weeping when the producers liked her so much the first time they asked her back to play a different character a year later. Fun fact: The actress who played Tyrion’s girlfriend Shae had performed in multiple hardcore porn scenes in Europe several years before joining Game of Thrones.
Article Of the Day:
ScreenRants “10 Secret Star Wars Facts You Never Knew.” Among the secrets are that Liam Neeson didn’t read a word of the Phantom Menace script before accepting the part, Spielberg couldn’t direct Return of the Jedi because it was made outside the Director’s Guild of America, Lando Calrissian was originally conceived as a clone who fought in the War, and one idea for a Return of the Jedi ending had Luke killing Vader before putting on his helmet and declaring “Now I am Vader!” to signal he’d gone to the dark side.