Development Hell

Your monthly glimpse into Hollywood’s hoped- for future

Things coming your way from the Hollywood dream factory of delights.

A tangled web? THE AMAZING SPIDER- MAN 3

Is the webslinger on a losing streak? In the comics they called it Peter Parker luck but in Hollywood they call it box office and there’s no denying that The Amazing Spider- Man 2 saw the rebooted franchise continue to fall short of the blockbusting heights of the Sam Raimi years. Sony may be Spidey- sensing it’s time to regroup and rethink: the studio has just declared that it’s pushing The Amazing Spider- Man 3 from 10 June 2016 to an undisclosed date in the summer of 2018. Screenwriter Roberto Orci is also officially off the project ( well, he does have an Enterprise to fly…). Sony is, however, still very much committed to The Sinister Six – set to mash together major Spidervillains in one almighty foegasm, this spin- off has just locked an 11 November 2016 release date.

From Roma With Love!

BOND 24

Will 007 be taking his gelato shaken not stirred? New intell suggests that the superspy is bound for Rome in his next adventure – astonishingly the first time MI6’ s favourite blunt instrument will have visited the Eternal City on the big screen, though Ian Fleming placed him there in the short story “Risico”. Lazio Film Commission president Luciano Sovena reveals that he recently met with the Bondmakers to discuss potential location filming and let slip that a spectacular car chase in Via Quattro Fontane provides a key sequence in the screenplay. Watch yourself, Luciano – people have taken bullets in the head for lesser indiscretions. Other potential locations for Bond 24 are tipped to include Morocco and Austria, conjuring the oddly boggling possibility of Daniel Craig on skis. Skyfall’s Alexander Witt returns to head up the second unit.

Trip advisor!

DOCTOR STRANGE

Hey, kids, care to expand your minds? We got some good stuff here. The best. Pure. Real pure. On the street they call it Strange. You’ll soon find out why. Let Marvel main man Kevin Feige fill you in: “We love the idea of playing with alternative dimensions,” he tells those cats at Collider. “Strange, in the crazy acid trip way, travelling through other dimensions and realms, is something we think

is very, very cool. Playing with the perceptions of reality.” Heavy, Kev. Tell the kids more. “I just watched the Neil Degrasse Tyson Cosmos series, which is amazing and which may as well be an acid trip. It’s mind- bending and it’s all based in physics and quantum mechanics and we’re going to play a lot with the notion of that as an explanation of how the sorcerers do what they do.” Sounds like a trip, huh, kids? So come on. Do some Strange. He’s a qualified doctor, right? It’s cool.

Of curse you can!

THE MUMMY

The entrance to the tomb creaks a little further open with the announcement that Alex Kurtzman has signed to direct Universal’s latest invocation of the Mummy franchise. You’ll know him as co- screenwriter of Transformers and the JJ Star Treks but he’s earned helming credits on Alias and New Day. Summoning the immortal Imhotep to the modern day, The Mummy is an opening salvo in Universal’s new box office ambitions. Sensing the possibility of some Marvel- style success, the studio is scheming to create a shared monsterverse from their portfolio of classic horror icons, connecting every great screen fiend from Dracula to the Creature From The Black Lagoon. Of course the last time they tried this we ended up with Abbot And Costello Meet Frankenstein… Best brace yourselves for Dumb And Dumber: Mummy And Mummier.

From chimpan- A to chimpan- Z! PLANET OF THE APES 3

Turns out you can’t hurry evolution, not even in Hollywood. Director Matt Reeves reveals that he’s in no rush to accelerate the timeline of the rebooted Apes franchise, for all that longtime monkey junkies may be yearning to return to the world of the original film. He tells Cinema Blend, “People have asked me, ‘ Isn’t it boring, because you know how it’s going to end?’ And I say that’s the best part about it. This world is nothing like that world. How do we get from here to there? Instead of being a story about ‘ what’ it becomes a story about how and why, which is all about character. And if this is Caesar’s story, and the story of the mythic character that he becomes, then as we know in the Apes timeline, Caesars begat other Caesars, and it’s a generational story. This is an epic journey toward the trajectory of that story.” So just be patient, lovers of orangutans in beige jerkins.

Lost in Austin! THE SIX BILLION DOLLAR MAN

Steve Austin. Astronaut. A man barely alive. Gentlemen, we can reboot him. We have the technology… Yes, Universal still aims to revive the slumbering bionic icon, played on television by squinty beefcake Lee Majors. This inflation- adjusted big screen adap has been stalling for over 15 years now, with everyone from Chris

Rock to Leonardo DiCaprio to Jim Carrey in the frame to play the crippled- astronaut- turnedcyborg- secret- agent. Now comes word that Mark Wahlberg is top pick for some slo- mo derring- do, building on his newfound action king status after the success of

Transformers: Age Of Migraine. Either that or someone’s a Funky Bunch fan. If Wahlberg does land the gig he’ll reunite with Lone

Survivor helmer Peter Berg, who’s attached to produce – and potentially direct – this upgrade of the ’ 70s TV classic.