DEVELOPMENT HELL

Your monthly glimpse into Hollywood’s hoped-for future

No, that column is not called Also Gurning, despite Jim Carrey’s mug being there.

Shine on! DOCTOR SLEEP

Some bad hotel experiences just can’t be exorcised by leaving a scathing review on Expedia. Just ask Danny, the son of Jack and Wendy Torrance in Stephen King’s

The Shining. King gave us an adult Danny in 2013 sequel Doctor Sleep, one still dealing with his experiences in the Overlook Hotel ( – “Blood poured out of the elevator… will NOT be coming back!”). Dealing with lingering rage and alcoholism, Danny encounters a young girl in a hospice who shares his psychic abilities, and soon discovers she’s the target of a group with the same terrifying powers. Ewan McGregor has signed to play the grown-up Torrance kid in the movie version being prepped by Warner Bros. It’s set to be helmed by Oculus’s Mike Flanagan, who won acclaim for last year’s King adaptation Gerald’s

Game. King’s enjoying quite the big-screen renaissance at the moment: aside from IT: Chapter

Two, we can also look forward to an adap of iconically creepy short story The Boogeyman from 20th Century Fox, written by A Quiet

Place’s Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, as well as Paramount’s remake of Pet Sematary, which has just scored Alien: Covenant’s Amy Seimetz for the female lead.

iSland of loSt SoulS!

THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE

Remember that oh-so mysterious Bermuda Triangle project that Sam Raimi was working on? The one that made your compass spin as you blinked

out of existence in frankly baffling circumstances, only to be immortalised on page 47 of The Usborne Book Of Spooky Shit? Well,

a little more information just emerged from that freaky, plane-snaffling vortex. Ryan Reynolds is tipped to star, playing a theoretical physicist who uses his grandfather’s research to open a wormhole to a weird island populated by the Triangle’s many victims – including sharks, Vikings and Nazis. We repeat: sharks, Vikings and Nazis. Possibly even Nazi sharks in Viking helmets. Oh, and there’s a missing nuclear submarine, ideally one that fires shark-shaped torpedoes at Nazis while blazing like a Viking burial ship. The screenplay’s by Power

Rangers’ John Gatins, and production kicks off in September, targeting a 2019 release.

ax to grind! BLOODSHOT

Clearly his stint as Doctor Doom in 2015’s terminally unloved

Fantastic Four hasn’t dissuaded Toby Kebbell from taking the comic-book movie dollar. He’s just been signed to Sony’s upcoming adaptation of Valiant’s Bloodshot, set to star Vin Diesel as the titular hero, a mortally injured soldier resurrected with the power of nanobots (nanobots are like miniature versions of your nan, injected directly into your body – amazing). Kebbell will reportedly play Ax, Bloodshot’s nemesis. Other cast members announced include Westworld’s Talulah Riley, who’ll play Bloodshot’s wife, Gina, and

UnREAL’s Alex Hernandez as Tibbs, the boffin behind the technological augmentation. It’s not the only Valiantverse project on the cards at Sony – the studio’s also developing a live-action adaptation of fan favourite Faith. And Arrival writer Eric Heisserer is working on Harbinger, focusing on superpowered teens.

…and the Schedule of doom! INDIANA JONES 5

Indy’s next crusade will arrive a little later than scheduled. Variety claims that the fifth Jones joint will now miss its previously declared release date of 10 July 2020. Filming was set to begin next April in the UK, but the start of production has purportedly been pushed back by months, potentially a year. The reason? There’s a new screenwriter picking up the hat. Jonathan Kasdan – co-writer of Solo: A Star Wars Story and son of Raiders Of The Lost Ark scribe Lawrence… don’t call him Junior! – is reportedly rewriting the first draft by Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull’s David Koepp. Given the delay, Steven Spielberg may choose to prioritise his remake of West Side Story, which is currently in pre-production, or switch his attention to historical drama The Kidnapping Of Edgardo Mortara. Meanwhile, in a distant temple, untouched by the centuries, an immortal grail knight shrugs.

JokerS wild! THE JOKER

It’s high-voltage joybuzzers at dawn! Yes, those duelling Warner Bros Joker movies continue to battle for supremacy. Joaquin Phoenix will play the rictus-faced fiend in a standalone take from helmer Todd Phillips (Borat) and producer Martin Scorsese. Rumoured to be set in the ’80s, it’s an origin tale charting the rise of Batman’s arch-foe against the squalid backdrop of Gotham’s gangster-infested underworld. Reportedly entering production this September, it’s expected to launch a new label for the studio, potentially called DC Black, because DC Ooh Edgy was obviously too subtle. Meanwhile, Suicide Squad’s Jared Leto is set to reprise his Clown Prince of Crime in a solo movie – one that he’ll also serve as executive producer on. How much cackling, chalkskinned psychosis can cinema take? We may be about to find out.

there will be blood! MORBIUS

Not content with infiltrating the DC Universe, Jared Leto is also signed to topline another entry in Sony’s pocket reality of SpiderMan projects. He’ll play Morbius the Living Vampire, a nightdwelling anti-hero introduced in The Amazing Spider-Man #101 back in 1971. Victim of a rare blood disorder, Dr Michael Morbius attempted to cure himself via a biochemical experiment, only to contract a strain of vampirism that inflicted a ghoulish pallor and an all-consuming craving for human blood. Life’s Daniel Espinosa will direct, with a screenplay by Burk Sharpless and Matt Sazama, showrunners on Netflix’s Lost In Space. Sony’s also announced another Spidey spin-off: Silk will bring Korean-American heroine Cindy Moon – bitten by the same radioactive spider as Peter Parker – to the big screen.

morphin ruSh! POWER RANGERS

Last year’s Power Rangers movie wasn’t quite the all-conquering pop-cultural resurrection Lionsgate was banking on. But now Hasbro has bagged the rights to the franchise, and are clearly thinking big. “This is really a great statement about where we believe we are in developing our brand blueprint,” says Hasbro CEO Brian Goldner, speaking at the company’s recent Strategic Decisions Conference. “The fact that we can acquire the Power Rangers brand and plug and play that right into our strategy where we activate it in entertainment, motion pictures in the future and then, of course, across toys and games and do so globally.” Wait, did he say motion pictures? “We felt the brand was very underleveraged and undervalued. We feel we can exploit it to a much greater extent.” Isn’t that the kind of stirring rhetoric that compels you to pull on the multi-coloured spandex and save the world? Go! Go! Quarterly Fiscal Projections!

Indy 5 has a new screenwriter picking up the hat