Cena bringing the heat, while Holmes and Co. set to haunt Victoria
Professional wrestler-turned-actor John Cena will be in Vancouver next month to film the firefighter comedy Playing with Fire.
Cena, who flexed his comic muscles opposite Amy Schumer in 2015’s Trainwreck and in last year’s surprise hit Blockers, will star as the leader of a rugged crew of wildfire fighters who meet their match when they attempt to rescue three rambunctious kids.
Judy Greer, Keegan Michael-Key, John Leguizamo and Brianna Hildebrand, who is best known as Negasonic Teenage Warhead in the Vancouver-filmed Deadpool movies, co-star in the film, which begins production on Feb. 4.
Paramount Pictures has given Playing with Fire a release date for March 2020.
HOLMES IN VICTORIA
Katie Holmes stars as a mother who picked the wrong the realtor in The Boy 2, which starts shooting in Victoria on Monday.
A sequel to the 2016 horror The Boy, Holmes and her family move into the Heelshire Mansion, unaware of its terrifying history and a demonic doll named Brahms lives there.
Of course her young son becomes friends with the doll and the fun begins.
The original movie, which starred The Walking Dead’s Lauren Cohan as a nanny put in charge of Brahms, earned $64 million worldwide on a $10-million budget.
STALLIONS
Carson Mell, one of the creative minds behind the HBO comedy Silicon Valley, is the writer, director and co-star of Some of Our Stallions, an indie comedy that will begin filming in Vancouver on Monday.
Olivia Taylor Dudley, who stars in the Vancouver-shot Syfy series The Magicians, and Al Di have also signed on for the film, which tells the story of two best friends struggling with mental illness as they search for love.
RIVERDALE THEFT
Riverdale’s production crew received an unpleasant new year surprise when they returned to work on the Vancouver-shot CW show earlier this month.
There was a break-in at the studio and we’ve heard that thieves made off with some gear and two vehicles, including the truck that belongs to Skeet Ulrich’s character FP Jones.
LANDO COMING TO VANCOUVER
Fan Expo Vancouver, a three-day festival that celebrates nerd culture and entertainment, is pulling in talent from a galaxy far, far away to bolster its celebrity guest list.
Billy Dee Williams, 81, who played Lando Calrissian in the Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi and who will reprise the role in the forthcoming Star Wars Episode IX, headlines this year’s Fan Expo, which will be held March 1-3 at the Vancouver Convention Centre.
Other celebrities confirmed for the event include Baywatch’s Pamela Anderson, Star Trek’s George Takei, along with Cary Elwes and Wallace Shawn, both from The Princess Bride.
KOVACS ALTERED
Cameras will start rolling Feb. 4 on season 2 of the bigbudget Netflix science-fiction series Altered Carbon.
The series, which is produced out of the Skydance Studios in Surrey, has a new leading man with Anthony Mackie, best known as Falcon from the Avengers franchise, taking over the role of Takeshi Kovacs from Joel Kinnaman.
Altered Carbon is set in a future where consciousness has digitized, allowing humans to survive physical death by having their memories and consciousness “re-sleeved” into new bodies. Such a premise sure makes it easy to recast characters.