development hell

Your monthly glimpse into Hollywood’s hoped- for future

The dudes abide!

BILL AND TED 3

Quantum physics is set to snog rock ‘ n’ roll in the third chapter of the most excellent Bill And Ted saga. Keanu Reeves reveals that the suitably slacker- late sequel will see the pair trying to save the world by the power of song. “They’re just like ‘ Dude, we have to write the song!’” he tells Coming Soon, sounding uncannily like a man impersonating Keanu Reeves. “The future comes back and says if you don’t write the song by this certain time the universe is going to unravel and history and everything is going to change and dinosaurs are gonna walk the Earth. Jesus is playing baseball! All sorts of weird things start unravelling and wormholes are twisting.” Jesus is playing baseball! We like totally want that on a t- shirt, dude. Galaxy Quest’s Dean Parisot is attached to direct from a screenplay by creators Ed Solomon and Chris Matheson.

St ark choices!

CAPTAIN AMERICA 3

See that giant hypodermic over there? It’s filled with pure essence of Robert Downey Jr and it’s about to be injected into the quivering flesh of the third Captain America movie. Don’t spill the goatee! Yes, Marvel’s shield- slinger is set to share his next screen adventure with fellow Avenger Iron Man. But is this a team- up or a face- off ? Word is that Cap 3 will riff on the Civil War saga, 2006’ s comic book crossover that saw the Marvel universe torn in two by the introduction of the Superhero Registration Act, a pesky piece of legislation that compelled anyone with superpowers to reveal their secret identities to the authorities. The superpatriot and the billionaire took opposing sides in this spandex- clad contribution to the civil liberties debate. Winter Soldier helmers Joe and Anthony Russo return to direct, targeting a 6 May 2016 release.

LeBeautifuL!

GAMBIT

Cajun- flavoured X- Man Remy LeBeau remains on target for some solo movie action. And he’ll reach the big screen in the form of Channing Tatum, testosterone-based lifeform from GI Joe and 22 Jump Street. “We’re finding a writer and sort of beating it out,” Tatum shares with MTV. “We really do want to try our hardest to give something fresh.” An icon of ’ 90s comics, Gambit’s a charm--

soaked Louisiana rogue with the ability to control pure kinetic energy – and a lethal line in playing card- powered violence. “We want to introduce this character in a very different way, and when you try to do something different you never know, right off the bat, what that is,” says Tatum. “It takes a little time to get it right. We’re really just feeling our way, and we have to prove that concept of that person.” One whisper is that Tatum’s take on the Southernfried mutant will have a stealth intro in 2016’ s X- Men: Apocalypse.

Rim shots!

PACIFIC RIM 2

Guillermo del Toro’s an ambitious fella. Not content with a mere encore to last year’s FX punchfest Pacific Rim he’s now scheming away on a third serving of tasty mecha v kaiju goodness – and he’s developing an animated TV show, too, poised to bridge the gaps in the creature- slapping saga. “The direction we’re going in is very different from the first,” he tells Collider, revealing that the first draft of the sequel’s screenplay is now in his mighty Mexican mitts. “All I can say is some of your favourite characters come back, others don’t because we have decided that we’re going to shoot ambitiously and say ‘ Let’s hope we have three movies’, so some characters come in at the end of the second, hoping that it will ramp up on the third one. I hope people like it, but you’re going to get a very different experience from the first one.” Pacific Rim 2 is set for a 3 April 2017 release.

Criminal intent!

SUICIDE SQUAD

Warner Bros will follow Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice by spotlighting some significantly less noble jaws in the DC Universe. The first in a newly announced onslaught of comic book movies set to hit between now and 2020 ( compelling scientific data points to this as the year planet Earth’s precious superheroic resources are finally mined to extinction),

Suicide Squad will corral together some of the DCU’s deadliest ne’er do wells, recruited by the US government to undertake high- risk black- ops missions. Captain Boomerang, Vixen and Deadshot are rumoured to be the star villains with the eminently bankable likes of Will Smith, Tom Hardy, Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling reputedly up for a spot of morally ambiguous world- saving. Fury’s

David Ayer directs.

The Hardy boy!

X- MEN: APOCALYPSE

Is that Tom Hardy’s phizog we detect on the all- seeing screen of Cerebro? Word is that 20th Century Fox are keen to add the

Dark Knight Rises star to their exponentially expanding X- verse. He’s in the frame for X- Men:

Apocalypse, orbiting the title role of the world’s first mutant, the immortal En Sabah Nur, already glimpsed milking some Ancient Egyptian worship in the post-credits stinger of X- Men: Days Of Future Past. Meanwhile producer

Simon Kinberg says that the next chapter of the X- saga will fully embrace its neon- friendly period setting: “We’re having a lot of fun with the idea of the ’ 80s,” he reveals to Collider. “It’s a decade that Bryan and I both grew up in and so the music, the style, the aesthetic, the legacy of ’ 80s movies is something we’re really having fun with.” Brace yourselves for the introduction of new X- Man Mullet, a mutant with the power to blast pure electric boogaloo from his fingers…