Murphy's Multiverse

Category: News

  • Denis Villeneuve Offers Update on ‘Dune: Part Two’

    Denis Villeneuve Offers Update on ‘Dune: Part Two’

    After making quite the splash at the box office, Denis Villeneuve‘s Dune has gone on to also become somewhat of an awards darling. Of course, many are quite focused on what the future has in store for the franchise. There have been hints that WarnerMedia is interested in expanding the franchise as its own cinematic universe, but most eyes are currently on Dune: Part Two, which will continue the story of Paul Atreides after being stranded in the dunes of Arrakis.

    In an interview with Collider, director Denis Villeneuve has confirmed that they’ve wrapped up work on the screenplay, while still highlighting that it consistently changes throughout the production. As such, they are currently preparing to start production already.

    The screenplay is finished mostly, but it’s always a work in progress. It’ll be a work in progress until final cut, but I will say it’s solidified. I have a script in my hands. We are in prep right now.

    Denis Villeneuve

    It makes sense that they’d fast-track the project as it’s supposed to release next year already. Villeneuve has hinted in the past that they’ve already prepared most of the work, and he kept it open to just jump back into this world and start production on the sequel. He is interested in tackling it as a trilogy with the second book becoming the third entry. Dune‘s original release was split up into two films due to just how much the story generally explores. So, it’ll be interesting to see how these films connect.

    Source: Collider

  • J.K. Simmons Confirms He’ll Start Work on ‘Invincible’ “Very Soon”

    J.K. Simmons Confirms He’ll Start Work on ‘Invincible’ “Very Soon”

    One of the biggest hits of last year was the animated adaptation of the popular Robert Kirkman comic series. No, not The Walking Dead but his superhero-inspired storyline titled Invincible about a rather dysfunctional family. Amazon brought the iconic series to life, as Mark Grayson come to realize something about his father Nolan Grayson a.k.a. Omni-Man. J.K. Simmons voices the most powerful superhero and recently revealed in an interview that they are getting ready to record their lines soon for the second season. While he can’t give away any details, he does highlight that we might still have to wait quite sometime before it will finally release.

    Again, always wary of spoilers, but I think I’m allowed to say that we’re going back to work very soon in the recording booth. Now, the lag between us doing our first recordings and the animation being completed is obviously many months and probably more than a year, I would guess. But, yes, Invincible is getting to work in earnest and season two is imminent, I will say. There’s a nice vague term.

    J.K. Simmons

    If the comics are anything to go by, the upcoming second season will be quite darker than the first season. Sadly, as the animation takes quite a lot of time to finalize, them starting voice work soon is definitely a sign that we’ll have to wait until late 2023 until the series releases. Hopefully, we’ll get an early renewal to explore the entire adaptation so they can jump directly into the next chapter once they wrap up the current release. For now, we can only wait for an update.

    Source: Discussing Film

  • J.K. Simmons Teases Commissioner Gordon’s Expanded Role in ‘Batgirl’

    J.K. Simmons Teases Commissioner Gordon’s Expanded Role in ‘Batgirl’

    Actor J.K. Simmons is busy doing press for the Oscar-nominated film Being the Ricardos, for which he earned a Best Supporting Actor nomination. The Academy Award-winning actor has been quite active in other projects recently, so it is no surprise that Simmons is getting plenty of questions about his various superhero projects, including Spider-Man: No Way Home, Invincible, and the upcoming Batgirl HBO Max film.

    While Westworld’s Jeffrey Wright played Gotham City’s Jim Gordon in the most recent live-action adaptation of the character in the recently released The Batman, Simmons took on the role of Commissioner Gordon in Justice League (2017) and Zack Snyder’s Justice League (2021). Unlike the latest iteration of the Dark Knight, these two films took place in the DCEU. So, it is not too surprising that Simmons is returning to play the character in the upcoming DCEU film, Batgirl. While Gordon had a limited role up to this point, Simmons told Discussing Film that there would be much more of Commissioner Gordon in Batgirl:

    It’s much more than I got to do in my brief stint as Commissioner Gordon in Zack Snyder’s film. And really, it was fun because it was a completely different side of Commissioner Gordon. All that we saw in the little snippets of Zack Snyder’s Justice League, in either the original or in Zack’s brilliant, expanded cut, it was just Commissioner Gordon being business-like and needing Batman’s help. In this film, I think I’m allowed to say since it does center on Batgirl, we see much more of Commissioner Gordon at home.

    J.K. Simmons

    The actor went on the praise directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, noting:

    Dude, those guys are crazy! I don’t know how they do it, and they had been shooting for four weeks or so by the time I joined. I met them via Zoom, and I was under the L track outside of my boxing gym in Chicago when we first spoke. They just bring such an energy. I’ve already compared them to a couple of like two-year-old Weimaraners, who have been pent up in the back of a station wagon all day and somebody just let them loose. The energy and the passion that they bring for making movies was a really fun energy to be around and then the fact that they also really know what they’re doing is is a nice part of the overall experience.

    J.K. Simmons

    Along with his renewed role of J. Jonah Jameson in the latest Spider-Man trilogy, Simmons is playing beloved comic book characters in both the Marvel and DC universes. But he added, “I’m still not sure I understand all the various multiverse aspects of, you know, DC or Marvel.” It is unclear when Batgirl will release given the major delays in the DCEU’s upcoming theatrical schedule, though there’s an argument to be made that it would make the perfect 2023 holiday release.

    Source: DiscussingFilm

  • First ‘Ms. Marvel’ Trailer Offers First Look at Disney+’s Take on Her Embiggening Powers in Action

    First ‘Ms. Marvel’ Trailer Offers First Look at Disney+’s Take on Her Embiggening Powers in Action

    The first trailer has finally arrived for Ms. Marvel, which will release earlier than expected with a June 8th premiere. Not only did we get a release date, but it also finally gave us our first full look at her new abilities, which are quite the departure from her comic origins. Instead of stretching her body, her abilities seem to be strongly based on creating constructs based on energy. We see her wear gauntlets that activate her powers, echoing Captain Marvel gaining her own in the 2019 film. Luckily, we later did get a visual inspired by the Embiggening powers that she had in the comics, but the giant fist is made of crystal.

    It does seem like she won’t be just creating constructs, as we also get teases of her being able to use it in creative ways. We briefly see her using her new abilities to close her door before her father walks in. She doesn’t seem like she is wearing her gauntlets in this sequence though.

    Image

    We also briefly see her using the abilities like additional armor over her arms and legs. So, we might expect a lot of creative uses of these powers even if it’s a shame they are moving away from her polymorph abilities from the comics. They seemingly wanted to build a stronger connection between her and the hero she looks up to.

    Image

    the trailer does look great and it does seem to take a lot of inspiration from modern high school series, like Netflix’s Never Have I Ever. It’ll be interesting to see if she has to struggle with her abilities even if she is no longer Inhuman seemingly. Of course, who knows if they also take a different direction with her character to build up towards that development. For now, you can watch the full trailer here:

    Source: YouTube

  • Haley Lu Richardson on Losing Out on ‘Batgirl’

    Haley Lu Richardson on Losing Out on ‘Batgirl’

    Prior to Leslie Grace securing the role as Barbara Gordon, aka Batgirl, multiple young actresses were up for the role. One of them was Haley Lu Richardson, who has starred in titles such as Five Feet Apart and Split. Per The Hollywood Reporter, the young actress was the runner-up behind Grace for the role of Batgirl, but Richardson seems content with how things ultimately went down.

    While promoting her latest film, After Yang, Richardson revealed that she received a note from J.K. Simmons after it was revealed she hadn’t gotten the role – something she feels made the whole thing worth it.

    “It was exciting regardless, and I did get a nice little personal email from J.K. Simmons out of it, which was really nice. Getting the role would’ve been pretty cool, but I told myself that his email meant more to me than getting the role. So I tried, but I’m not Batgirl at the end of the day. I’m trying to think of what freaking superhero I can play now because aren’t they all done already? My dance skills, my flexibility and my athleticism need to be utilized.”

    Although she didn’t get the role of Batgirl, Richardson is more than ready for Hollywood to cast her as a superhero. As she explains, she has dance skills, is flexible and is athletic. With her being a final contender, it seems likely she’ll eventually land her superhero role. After all, as we’ve seen in the past, Hollywood tends to revisit talent when it comes to casting new roles.

    Batgirl, starring Leslie Grace, is now in production and is set to be an HBO Max exclusive film. No release date has been announced.

    Source: THR.

  • ‘Creepshow’s Grant Freely Cast as a Young Luke Skywalker

    ‘Creepshow’s Grant Freely Cast as a Young Luke Skywalker

    In a recent article by The Hollywood Reporter, we learned about how much the upcoming Obi-Wan Kenobi series has changed since its earlier stages with Darth Maul being completely written out of the show at some point. Sneakily hidden away in the article is the reveal of the actor playing a young Luke Skywalker. The first trailer did give us a first look at the character, who was pretending to be flying or pod racing yet we never learned the name of the young actor taking on the role. Well, it turns out it is Grant Freely, whose only other credit was an episode of Creepshow.

    It’s great to see such young talent get a shot at playing some iconic roles. WandaVision also gave two young up-and-coming actors a chance at tackling some iconic roles. We still don’t know that much about the story of the sequel, but the article by The Hollywood Reporter did hint that he was initially going to protect Skywalker from Darth Maul, who returned to take his vengeance on Obi-Wan. They’ve seemingly moved away from that initial storyline due to too many similarities with The Mandalorian, who also took inspiration from Lone Wolf and Cub. We’ll see if Luke has any roll at all in the story, or simply was teased to remind people why Kenobi is on Tatooine once it releases late May.

    Source: The Hollywood Reporter

  • Darth Maul May Have Been Written Out of ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’

    Darth Maul May Have Been Written Out of ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’

    Here’s a rather surprising drop, but it looks like Darth Maul was originally going to appear in the upcoming Obi-Wan Kenobi series. The Hollywood Reporter has revealed that Ray Park was actively preparing to play the role. Yet, it seems that as part of an overhaul of the project, he was written out only for Darth Vader and other antagonists, very likely the many Inquisitors we’ve seen in the first trailer, to get added. It seems that he had a role in Hossein Amini’s original scripts before Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau supervised the scripts and feared some overlap with The Mandalorian.

    The role given to Maul was him chasing down Kenobi trying to hide a very young Luke Skywalker. It seems they wanted showrunner Deborah Chow to “go bigger” with the project before Kathleen Kennedy got involved to ensure they’d rework it. They even found a young Skywalker actor who didn’t end up getting to film any scenes. Supposedly, some footage has been filmed with Park as test footage, but he was definitely set to return before getting written out. It seems that it was Filoni‘s idea to focus strongly on the Rebels’ Grand Inquisitor and Vader as part of the series.

    Source: The Hollywood Reporter

  • ‘Ms. Marvel’ Adds Anjali Bhimani in a Recurring Role

    ‘Ms. Marvel’ Adds Anjali Bhimani in a Recurring Role

    With Ms. Marvel originally eyeing a release last year, we didn’t quite expect any casting announcements for the series, but it looks like there were still some surprises. Deadline has shared that Anjali Bhimani has a recurring role in the upcoming Disney+ series. As is par of the course, any details regarding her character remain under wraps. is taking on the role of the Pakistani-American teenager from New Jersey, who first made her debut back in 2014.

    This isn’t the actress’s first Marvel series, as she also previously worked on Marvel TV’s Runaway series. She played an employee at Wizard named Mita Nansari, and it’ll be interesting to see what role she’ll tackle in the Disney+ series. She also had roles in series like Special Station 19, Modern Family, as well as Grace and Frankie. She joins a cast consisting of Laurel Marsden, Rish Shah, Saagar Shaikh, Matt Lintz, and Aramis Knight.

    Bisha K. Ali is the project’s head writer with a directing team consisting of Adil El Arbi, Bilall Fallah, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, and Meera Menon. As mentioned previously, the Disney+ series was originally going to premiere in 2021 but ended up getting pushed back all the way to the summer of this year. We still don’t have an exact release date, but we do know that it’ll be the next release after Moon Knight and a premiere seem to be planned for early June. So, it’ll likely release around then.

    Source: Deadline

  • ‘Harley Quinn’s Kite Man Getting a ‘Cheers’-Inspired Own Spinoff

    ‘Harley Quinn’s Kite Man Getting a ‘Cheers’-Inspired Own Spinoff

    Hell Yeah! It looks like the scene-stealing Kite Man is getting his own HBO Max spinoff from the popular R-rated Harley Quinn series. During SXSW’s Not Kidding Around: Warner Bros. Animation and the “Reimagining of Iconic Characters for an Adult audience” panel, series creator Patrick Schumacker has revealed that they are working on a spinoff titled Noonan’s.

    The project is in early development, but Kite Man will take center stage in the project as he buys the infamous villain hangout spot Noonan’s Bar in Gotham. Schumacker had the following to say on the spinoff teasing it’ll be strongly inspired by Cheers.

    He tries to run the bar by himself but it doesn’t turn out so easy. We have Harley and Ivy appear in the first episode, but after that, we have with different goons and villains appearing every episode like Lex Luthor and Bane. It will be kind of like ‘Cheers’ for supervillains.

    Patrick Schumacker

    UPDATING

    Source: Slash Film

  • RUMOR: Din Djarin May Visit Mandalore in ‘The Mandalorian’ Season 3

    RUMOR: Din Djarin May Visit Mandalore in ‘The Mandalorian’ Season 3

    There have been quite a few rumors making the rounds on what we might expect from the third season of The Mandalorian. After the reunion of Din Djarin and Grogu in The Book of Boba Fett, it seems like the future is bright for the two. Well, it seems that one hint from the first spinoff may become a reality in the upcoming next season, as Bespin Bulletin has shared some details on a new set that might tease Djarin’s arrival at a location teased throughout the franchise so far, his homeworld Mandalore.

    Bespin Bulletin describes a cave set where Paz Vizla, Din Djarin, and the Armorer were on set for the sequence. It’s a cave that has black sand at its entrance. It seems that the first rumblings of this location were already earlier in the year, but the cast reports alongside some updates, i.e. the before-mentioned sand, has made the connection to this potentially being the Mines of Mandalore. What helps is the reference to this location as a way for Djarin to make up for taking off his mask and rejoining the Mandalorian creed. The rumor also hints at the cave including a lake, which is referenced as the living waters.

    There have been strong hints that the group that raised him is quite radical. So, the potential return of Bo Katan may also open up a potential conflict for the Mandalorian, who now wields the Darksaber. A visit to Mandalore always seemed like the endgame for the storyline, but with Grogu’s return, anything can happen. One thing is for sure, he won’t let anything happen to his ward.

    Source: Bespin Bulletin