It’s the end of your average week of movie news coming out of Hollywood. Some casting updates, reveals/confirmations, and other new tidbits were made public. So without any further ado, let’s discuss some of the stories now.
Disney live-action films have been increasing by the plenty in recent years. Some have been better than others, but most of them have been box office hits regardless. The most recent example of that would be last year’s huge critical and financially successful adaptation of The Jungle Book; there is also the upcoming Beauty And The Beast on March 17th. One of the next to come is the adaptation of The Lion King, and it has its first cast members in Donald Glover and James Earl Jones. As revealed by director Jon Favreau, Glover will be voicing Simba, as Jones is back to voice Mufasa, as he did in the original.
Anyone who’s curious as to how a live-action Lion King would work, it would likely be similar to how Jungle Book was done in that it would be CGI technology to create the world. It worked to near perfection that time, so there’s reason to think lighting would strike twice. As for the casting, it’s great. Glover’s star had been on the rise lately; he’ll be a part of both Spider-Man: Homecoming and the currently entitled Han Solo Anthology movie. He’s had a number of nice smaller roles in projects also. It’s really awesome to see that James Earl Jones is coming back to Mufasa. He’s got one of those voices that you can recognize faster than you can say sausage pizza. The fatherly nature of the character he puts in with his voice is pretty amazing. This project is off to a real nice start, but does not yet have a release date.
Fans and speculators have been speculating who the main villain of Wonder Woman will be for her first solo feature film for quite a while. It’s been widely believed that the baddie of the film is the Amazonian Princess’ longtime nemesis Ares, the God Of War. Well now it’s been made official thanks to a reveal at a toy fair that Ares is indeed the villain, and will be played by Harry Potter actor David Thewlis. It’s being reported that the character will be created with a blending of motion capture and practical effects.
I personally don’t know a lot about Thewlis, or seen him in much, but he is a seasoned performer with a wide acting range, so there’s reason for optimism. Granted getting good talent may not necessarily equate to a cool take on a character, but I feel like he’s capable of a memorable performance as Ares that people respond well to. Also starring Chris Pine and Connie Nielsen, Wonder Woman is directed by Patty Jenkins and opens in U.S. theaters June 2nd.
It’s no secret that Paramount Pictures has had a rough go of it lately. They’ve had a number of high profile flops and disappointments which has resulted in lost money and in some instances lost jobs. As a result, the studio’s CEO Brad Grey has decides to step down from his position after being their since 2005.
This is kind of like that sports team who’s really been struggling, and is in need of some sort of change be it a change at coach, or front office, etc. When it comes to Paramount, I believe it’s more in line of a lot of the movies not being of not the highest quality, and not doing great at the box office. Even one of their biggest money makers with the Transformers franchise, those movies for the most part have been critically panned. They do have other big time franchise’s with better received cash cows like Mission: Impossible and Star Trek, but that’s not enough. I respect Mr. Grey for taking action in seeing the need for a shakeup, and we’ll see what happens next.
Finally, Wednesday night 20th Century Fox continued on their marketing machine for director Ridley Scott’s next in the Alien prequel series Alien: Covenant by releasing a short prologue film titled The Last Supper. The short, as the title indicates, shows the crew partaking in their final meal right before the crew goes into a cryogenic sleep.
It’s probably not too likely this will be included in the movie. One thing of note, however, is seeing that the captain of the ship, as played by James Franco, is looking a little the worse for wear here (if you have seen any of the Alien movies, you might have a hint what’s coming and it’s not good). Judging from the first trailer and this little short film, it looks like with a slightly bigger scope this will be scarier than Prometheus was, ad star Michael Fassbender has indicated before. In addition to Fassbender, Alien: Covenant stars Katherine Waterston, Danny McBride and Billy Crudup and opens in theaters on May 19th.
What stands out to you among this group of stories? Let me know in the comments section.
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Dooz The Entertainment Dude 