Development hell

Your monthly glimpse into Hollywood’s hoped- for future

The Mark of Millar!

JUPITER’S LEGACY Kingsman and Kick- Ass creator Mark Millar continues his one- man invasion of Hollywood. He’s now teaming with Transformers producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura on a movie version of his comic Jupiter’s Legacy. Co- created with Frank Quitely, it’s a multi- generational superhero tale, exploring the lives of superpowered offspring in the long, spandex- clad shadow of their parents. “What appealed to me was the emotional weight of the family dynamic in Shakespearean fashion,” says di Bonaventura. Millar says: “His plan is just seismic. The talent he’s talking about behind the camera convinced me to relinquish the rights to my most treasured book and now I just can’t wait to see where this goes.” Millar’s time- bending Chrononauts is also screen-bound, with Fast Five’s Chris Morgan producing.

Virtual Spielberg!

READY PLAYER ONE Steven Spielberg’s back in the popcorn SF game – and it feels like a perfect fit. The Great Beard’s attached to direct the big- screen take on this novel by Ernest Cline, the tale of a teen named Wade Watts on a treasure hunt in a virtual reality realm known as OASIS. The book’s a hymn to Amblin era pop culture – there’s even a cameo by the flying DeLorean from Back To The Future Part II – so the fact that Spielberg ’s helming the adaptation is a whole funky barrel of meta. “We have always felt that Steven was the dream director for this project,” says Warner Bros president Greg Silverman. It’s been a buzz magnet property in Hollywood for a while now – everyone from Christopher Nolan to Peter Jackson to Robert Zemeckis to Edgar Wright have been potential directors. The latest version of the script’s by X2’ s Zak Penn.

Squad botherers!

SUICIDE SQUAD

Warner Bros continue to swell the ranks of David Ayer’s Suicide Squad. Frankly it’s not so much an ensemble cast as a small nation. Latest addition to the super-villainous roster is Lost’s Adewale Akinnuoye- Agbaje, tapped to play Batman’s nemesis Killer Croc, a Gotham City crim with a reptillian spin. Resident Evil franchise face Ray Olubowale joins him as King Shark – go on,

guess his shtick, guess it – while

Karen Fukuhara is tipped to play Plastique, a villain from the

Firestorm comics. And no, she doesn’t wield the cosmic power of Tupperware. Scott Eastwood, son of Clint, will play Steve Trevor, longtime love interest of Wonder Woman, recently reimagined in DC’s New 52 as the head of clandestine organisation ARGUS. But will his teeth sparkle like Lyle Waggoner’s in the titles to the ’ 70s

Wonder Woman show?

Autoboterotica!

TRANSFORMERS

If you want a picture of the future imagine the foot of a Transformer stamping on a human face… forever. Yes, people of planet Earth, it appears we must brace ourselves for remorseless, unremitting clankage. Paramount Pictures is plotting maximum exploitation of its Transformers brand, aiming to establish a big- screen sandpit to rival the Marvel, Star Wars and, yes,

Ghostbusters universes. It’s the hot new thing, kids. The studio wants writer/ producer Akiva Goldsman to assemble a writers’ room, cranking out ideas for a potential multi- part sequel alongside multiple spin- off films designed to squeeze every last droplet of billion- dollar franchise juice. Goldman will be teamed with director Michael Bay, producer

Lorenzo di Bonaventura and

executive producer Steven

Spielberg. The rest of us still have time to load civilisation’s treasures onto a giant space ark.

Da doo Tron Tron!

TRON 3

Fire up the light cycles and break out the Daft Punk: Disney is officially moving forward with a third Tron movie. We’d call it a threequel but you’d punch the page. This news arrives five years after Tron 2.0, a mere blink of a neon- dazzled eye compared to the near 30- year gap between that sequel and its predecessor. Joseph Kosinski returns as director and

stars Garrett Hedlund and Olivia Wilde are also back for further adventures in the Grid – he’s Sam, the son of the Jeff Bridges character in the 1982 original while she’s Quorra, an ass- kicking algorithm. One rumoured title is

Tron: Ascension, another’s Tron: Redemption. No one’s calling it Tron: Electricity Billaggeddon. Filming ’s expected to begin in Vancouver later this year with a potential release in 2017 or 2018.

Apocalypse Now!

X- MEN: APOCALYPSE

Oscar Isaac is earning his geek points. Later this year we’ll see him in an obscure arthouse number named Star Wars: The

Force Awakens. Next year he’s the titular immortal villain in Bryan

Singer’s X- Men: Apocalypse. “You find something that makes it interesting for you,” he tells

Esquire. “The woman who invented Apocalypse, Louise

Simonson, she was tasked with making a new arch villain. She said ‘ Okay, I’ll make the embodiment of the Second Coming with the Four Horsemen and all.’ That’s scary shit. So I’m curious about that. What’s the philosophical expression behind the apocalypse?” We like to think Vinnie Jones equally pondered the philosophical expression behind Juggernaut. Also heading for X- duty are Lana Condor as Jubilee, Olivia Munn as Psylocke, and EastEnders star Ben Hardy as winged mutant Angel. If the film sticks to the comics we’ll see Angel brainwashed by Apocalypse and transformed into Archangel, leader of the Four Horsemen.