Doux News Bi-Monthly Roundup: July 1, 2018

Feige makes the rounds, DC is probably better off on the small screen, Google's own game console?, Watchmen casting news, Discovery gets more help, King is the king again, more Angels and more...

Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige has been pretty visible lately, and has dropped some news about the future of the MCU without actually giving us much at all. First he dropped the name Power Pack (which is about a group of preteen superheroes) as a potential future movie, teased The Eternals (Marvel comic's version of gods for lack of a quicker explanation), said we won’t get a Captain Marvel trailer for a least a few months, and that the title to the fourth Avengers won’t be announced until the end of the year. But he did confirm that we are getting a Doctor Strange 2, and that the title for the next Spider-man film will be Spider-man: Far From Home. James Gunn has also finished the script for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and production will start in early 2019 ahead of a loose 2020 release. He also promised to have an LGBTQ+ presence in the MCU, stating that two characters will be featured, one we have already met, and another we haven’t.

The DC streaming service has finally gotten some real explanations for proposed content. The plan is to be a hub for everything DC related, including movies, comics, books and even a social media platform for fans to share their love for DC Comics characters. It will also serve as a launch pad for new DC serialized television shows, starting with Titans, a gritty live action adaptation of Teen Titans, a comic series led by Robin. He will be joined in this version by Raven, Starfire and Beast Boy. And no, I don’t really expect you to automatically know who they are. Pictured right is the first real shot of the lead in full costume, and honestly, it looks pretty good.

Google is slowly taking over everything, with the most recent news coming in the form of a streaming platform that will effectively destroy the need for hardware to play modern video games. A potential console released by Google would access this platform to deliver high-end PC level graphics to almost any device since all the processing would be done in the cloud. This was probably inevitable, but I doubt this proposed console will dominate competition from the current kings of the video game world (Playstation, Nintendo, and X-Box).

The Watchmen was an important and influential series of comics released in 1986 about an alternate America where real heroes wear masks, and a man turned god has changed the course of humanity. Mostly dealing with a murder mystery, it was faithfully (albeit controversially) adapted for film by Zach Snyder. Now it is being made into some kind of sequel adaptation on HBO. This week we got a bunch of casting news, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (Baywatch), Sara Vickers (The Crown), Frances Fisher, Regina King, Jacob Ming-Trent (Superfly), Louis Gossett Jr., Don Johnson, Tim Blake Nelson (The Incredible Hulk), Adelaide Clemens (Rectify), Andrew Howard (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) have all been announced to star in the pilot. Then came word that Tom Mison and Jeremy Irons have been added as leads.

I was pretty harsh on Alex Kurtzman a couple of weeks ago, mostly because he’s done some truly horrible work.  But this week I have to give him some credit for realizing he cannot do things alone. Apparently he has hired James Duff (creator of The Closer) as an executive producer to help run the writers room for Star Trek: Discovery. While I have never watched The Closer, I’ve heard it’s pretty good. Plus he wrote "Fortunate Son," an episode for the first season of Star Trek: Enterprise… wait, wasn’t that one of the really bad episodes? Crap.

In the wake of one of the best Stephen King adaptations to date, It (2017), a wave of new movies have have been announced. A few weeks ago I talked about the casting of Ewan McGregor as Danny Torrance in Doctor Sleep, now Rebecca Ferguson (Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation) was just cast in an unspecified role. This comes shortly after the announcement of yet another King adaption; Firestarter joining the long list of adaptations in production, It: Part 2, Pet Sematary, The Outsider, The Boogeyman, The Long Walk, The Tommyknockers and the still mysterious Castle Rock television show which debuts later this month.

Did you know they are doing a Charlie’s Angels reboot movie? Sony Pictures is starting production on the film later this year ahead of a June 7, 2019 release date. Elizabeth Banks is directing the project, which means it’ll probably remain somewhat comedic, and will play Bosley. The more interesting thing about the film is the casting of the three Angels: Kristen Stewart, Lupita Nyong’o, and Naomi Scott are set to play them, and while I may have no interest in the final project, seriously, yay for diversity.

I’m not a fan of the Transformers movie franchise. Yet for the first time I’m almost excited for a Transformers movie because of this trailer for the prequel/reboot Bumblebee. Please be good, and please be a fresh start to the franchise.

Bits:

Sony is trying hard to stay relevant in the superhero movie game, and with their deal with Valiant Entertainment (which used to be Valiant Comics), they are looking into producing a movie based on Faith, a plus-sized superhero who can fly and create psychic bubbles. Could be interesting at least, and she could be an important role model if it’s done right.

M. Night Shyamalan has produced maybe four good movies in his long career, including Split (2016) which turned out to be a surprise sequel to one of other good movies; Unbreakable (sorry about the spoiler but the movie is two years old now). Almost immediately after Split (2016) was released, rumors began to circulate about a potential third film in the series, and now we have a poster and and release date for that film titled Glass, January 18, 2019.

Greta Gerwig is set to write and direct an upcoming adaptation of Little Women with what could be really good cast if things pan out with Meryl Streep, Emma Stone, Florence Pugh and Saoirse Ronan in talks to star.

The Conners spinoff is happening, largely because ABC didn’t want to lose out on such a lucrative property, but also because Rosanne decided to let go of her stake in the franchise.  She says that after thinking about it she didn’t want to be paid off for her claim on the series, as penance for the things she said. Not that it excuses her behavior, but at least she’s being somewhat gracious about the consequences.

After all the casting news for the Berlantiverse I talked about in the last semi-weekly roundup, another one cropped up afterwards. Courtney Ford, who played Damien Darhk’s daughter Nora in the last season of Legends of Tomorrow, will be returning as a series regular along with Constantine and Ava Sharp.

Recent Movie Releases for June 22, 2018 and June 29, 2018

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom - Direct sequel to Jurassic World and more broadly to Jurassic Park. I say a lot more in my review of the film.

Sicario: Day of the Soldado - Sequel to Sicario, which sees the return of Josh Brolin and Benicio Del Toro to this action sequel involving a war between drug cartels.

That's all, folks!  See you in two weeks.

Samantha M. Quinn spends most of her time in front of a computer typing away at one thing or another; when she has free time, she enjoys pretty much anything science fiction or fantasy-related.