DEVELOPMENT HELL
Your monthly glimpse into Hollywood’s hoped-for future
Behold the miracle of cinematic conception, all before your eyes…
False Face Facts! BIRDS OF PREY
It’s official: Ewan McGregor will be the special guest villain in this femme-powered Batman spin-off. He’s signed to play Black Mask, alias Roman Sionis, the Gotham City mob boss who leads the False Face Society, a gang of reprobates who hide their identities behind disguises. Created as the anti-Bruce Wayne, the wealthy but unhinged Sionis’s own ebony mask was permanently welded to his face in a fire, which may account for some of his more anti-social tendencies. Directed by Cathy Yan, Birds Of Prey stars Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Huntress, Jurnee Smollett-Bell as Black Canary and Rosie Perez as GCPD detective Renee Montoya. “I could not put the script down,” says Yan of the script by Christina Hodson “It had so much dark humour to it, which a lot of my work does, and there are themes of female empowerment which are so strong and relatable.” Filming begins in January for a February 2020 release.
PrePare yourselF! ALIEN NATION
It’s been simmering in Development Hell for over two years, but Jeff Nichols says his Alien Nation remake is still an ongoing concern. “I’m almost done with [the screenplay],” the Midnight Special helmer revealed to Slashfilm. “I’m hoping this draft that I’m working on now will be my last. The studio seems to really love it, and we’re working on conception design of the aliens and everything else.” The 1988 original spliced buddy cop drama with a parable of extraterrestrial Newcomers assimilating into Earth society. Nichols promises this won’t be a traditional remake. “It’s epic. I mean, it’s the biggest canvas I’ve ever painted on, but it 100 per cent feels like a Jeff Nichols film. I’m sure there are gonna be some Alien Nation fans out there that are like, ‘What the fuck?’ but my hope is if people come to it ready for a new story, that they’ll like it. I put so much of myself into it.” He really did – this time the aliens resettle in his home state of Arkansas.
It’s a wraP! AVATAR 2 & 3
James Cameron confirms that the main cast has completed work on Avatar 2 and 3. “Our principal cast are all wrapped,” he told JoBlo. “Sam [Worthington], Zoe [Saldana], Sigourney [Weaver], Stephen Lang, Kate Winslet – they’re done now, but they gave us incredible performances, and I can’t tell you how proud I am of the work they did on these films.” Avatar 2 and 3 will be followed,
sure as night follows day on Pandora, by Avatar 4 and 5. “The scripts are amazing,” says
Sigourney Weaver, who learned to freedive for the sub-aquatic action cooked up by Cameron. “In the first one, which I love, I think he hadn’t set up a lot of things. In this one he got to tell this very personal story. They’re amazing. There’s a message to not sacrifice everything for greed and conquest. It will take all four movies to really make that message loud and clear for the whole world.”
what’s haPPenIng, Flash? FLASH GORDON
Diiiiiive! Overlord helmer Julius
Avery is making a career swerve from Nazi zombies to Hawkmen. He’s signed to write and direct a new take on the legendary SF icon – just a man, lest we forget, with a man’s courage, and a cool t-shirt with his name on – currently in development at 20th Century Fox. Kingsman’s
Matthew Vaughn was originally courted to direct back in 2015, working from a screenplay by JD Payne and Patrick McKay, but will now serve as producer alongside I, Robot’s John Davis. The creation of Alex Raymond, Flash debuted in a newspaper strip in 1934 before rocketing to the big screen two years later in the firm-jawed form of Buster Crabbe. Steve Holland played him on TV in the ’50s before Sam J Jones flew to Mongo in 1980’s Blessedtastic movie version. Always remember: this morning’s unprecedented solar eclipse is no cause for alarm…
It’s only Forever, not long at all! LABYRINTH 2
For some it was the raw material of nightmare, for others a gateway into a whole new world. But enough of David Bowie’s codpiece. We’re here to tell you that Uruguayan filmmaker
Fede Alvarez has completed a draft script for the Labyrinth sequel with co-writer Jay Basu
(Monsters: Dark Continent, The Girl In The Spider’s Web). But, as the helmer of the Evil Dead remake tells Movieweb, there’s more work to be done before the Magic Dance begins. “We have a first version that I think is amazing. We’re gonna keep writing until we believe that it’s a perfect script. It will take some time because that’s not something you rush.” The new movie is said to catch up with the now grown-up Sarah after her encounter with the Goblin King. “We had what I thought was this great idea to continue that story and jump so many years later and pick up that story now. We got really excited about that and we started collaborating with the Hensons, with Jim Henson’s daughter.”
tIme aFter tIme! THE TIME MACHINE
IT helmer Andy Muschietti is adapting HG Wells’s classic 1895 novel for Warner Bros. He’s set to direct – and co-write a screenplay with sister Barbara Muschietti – for producers Jennifer Davisson and Leonardo DiCaprio. Wells’s pioneering tale of fourth-dimensional travel has been brought to the screen before, of course – a live BBC TV play in 1949, George Pal’s 1960 version (“In futuristic Metrocolor”, no less), a 1978 TV movie and a 2002 film, the thought of which leaves us strangely nostalgic for Samantha Mumba. There’s also a new miniseries adaptation on the way, courtesy of Sky. Intrigued by the question of just how many times mankind will adapt this particular book, we constructed a crude time-travel device from a penny-farthing, Queen Victoria’s teeth and a tin bathtub. Arriving in a distant, post-apocalyptic future populated by devolved beings known as Leavers and Remainers, we decided there were more pressing things to worry about.
There’s a message not to sacrifice everything for greed