Murphy's Multiverse

Tag: Movies

  • REPORT: ‘Aquaman 2’ Will Recast Amber Heard’s Mera

    REPORT: ‘Aquaman 2’ Will Recast Amber Heard’s Mera

    There’s been a lot of reports on what exactly the future looks like for Amber Heard in the upcoming Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. She was initially cast as Mera in the first film, and there have been countless petitions for Warner Bros. to recast the role. Now, the trial with Johnny Depp has come to an end with rumors circulating that she’d be cut entirely from the film. JustJared has now added to the story that she’ll be recast entirely but no further details have been given in regard to how that would look like or who may take over the role.

    There’s been a lot of reports and Warner Bros. Discovery is ready to invest money to recast and reshoot all her scenes after the drama surrounding her trial would make for an interesting move. There have been hints at what direction the sequel’s story will take and we’ve learned that her role has been greatly reduced, to begin with. So, it may not be as big of a deal as it seems at first.

    There have been quite a few fan castings on who could take the role, such as Emilia Clarke, especially due to her past with frontman Jason Momoa in Game of Thrones. Still, there’s no official confirmation yet from Warner Bros. and we may see an official statement regarding the recasting in the near future as the production enters reshoots eventually.

    Source: JustJared

  • ‘Puss in Boots’ Director to Tackle a ‘Smurfs’ Musical

    ‘Puss in Boots’ Director to Tackle a ‘Smurfs’ Musical

    It looks like Chris Miller has found his next project, as he is set to adapt a Smurfs film installment. The former Puss in Boots director will tackle the next entry for Paramount Animation and Nickelodeon Animation, which was highlighted during the Annecy International Animation Film Festival. It’s part of a deal from the worldwide licensors holders LAFIG Belgium and IMPS, where multiple films were set to get produced based on the popular comics.

    The musical will be produced from Pam Brady‘s screenplay, who’s well-known for his work on Team America: World Police. Paramount Animation’s president Ramsey Naito has also shared the following statement regarding Chirs Miller joining the production.

    We’re thrilled to have such a talented group of people bringing audiences this latest rendition of the beloved Smurfs universe, including the incredible Chris Miller.

    Ramsey Naito

    They have confirmed that this Smurfs entry is going to be a musical that fits the childhood classic characters. So, we’ll see how they bring these characters to life and if it acts more like a standalone project or even acknowledges previous cinematic entries. Either way, it looks like The Smurfs aren’t going to take a break from the silver screen any time soon.

    Source: Hollywood Reporter

  • ‘The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes’ Adds 5 in Key Roles

    ‘The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes’ Adds 5 in Key Roles

    The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, a prequel that will follow 18-year-old Cornelius Snow in the 10th Annual Hunger Games, has added five actors to its roster. Knox Gibson, Aamer Husain, Jerome Lance, Mackenzie Lansing and Ashley Liao have joined the film as either tributes or mentors. They join the already announced Rachel Zegler, who will play tribute Lucy Gray Baird, and Tom Blyth, who will play Snow.

    Liao signed on to play Clemensia Dovecote, a mentor from District 11 and a close friend of Snow. Husain will play Felix Ravinstill, another mentor to a District 11 tribute, while Gibson, Lance and Lansing all signed on as tributes from other Districts.

    The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes was written by Hunger Games writer Suzanne Collins and was published in 2020. The book is set 64 years before the events of the Hunger Games. The screenplay for the film has been developed by Michael Lesslie and the film is currently set to be released in theaters on November 17, 2023.

    Source: Deadline

  • ‘Top Gun Maverick’ Beats ‘Doctor Strange 2’ to $400M Domestically

    ‘Top Gun Maverick’ Beats ‘Doctor Strange 2’ to $400M Domestically

    Top Gun: Maverick continues to fly high. The Tom Cruise-led film has crossed the $400 million mark at the domestic box office, making it the highest-grossing movie of the year, pulling ahead of Marvel Studios’ Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which is sitting at $398.7 million domestically as of Monday. With a $401.8 million domestic haul, so far, Maverick has also earned a spot as the second-highest grossing movie of the pandemic following Spider-Man: No Way Home. When all is said and done, Top Gun: Maverick will easily find itself in the billion-dollar club at the worldwide box office.

    As for Jurassic World: Dominion, the dino-flick pulled in another $12.7 million on Monday, bringing its four-day total to a decent $157.7 million. While that’s a less than impressive Monday haul for the month of June, it’s still notable during a pandemic. For comparison’s sake, though, Dominion’s first Monday was below 2015’s Jurassic World ($25.3 million) and 2018’s Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom ($14.7 million). With the release of Lightyear this weekend, Dominion is expected to see a fair 58% drop in its second weekend with experts predicting it’ll pull in another $61 million.

    With a fresh rating of 82% on Rotten Tomatoes, Disney and Pixar’s Lightyear looks likely to upset Maverick and Dominion at the box office this weekend. As to how high Lightyear will fly, however, remains to be seen.

    Source: Deadline

  • First Look and Details on Guillermo del Toro’s ‘Pinocchio’

    First Look and Details on Guillermo del Toro’s ‘Pinocchio’

    Guillermo del Toro‘s upcoming Pinocchio has been a passion project for the director for years. He’s been trying to get it made for a while and now has found a home with Netflix that is willing to let his artistic venture come to life. The stop-motion storyline from the director of Labyrinth and Hellboy promises something special, and in a new piece by Vanity Fair, he gets to talk about how he’s approaching a more gothic take of the tale.

    I’ve always been very intrigued by the links between Pinocchio and Frankenstein,” del Toro tells Vanity Fair for this exclusive first look. “They are both about a child that is thrown into the world. They are both created by a father who then expects them to figure out what’s good, what’s bad, the ethics, the morals, love, life, and essentials, on their own. I think that was, for me, childhood. You had to figure it out with your very limited experience

    One thing that intrigued the director was the similarities between the living puppet and the iconic Frankenstein story, as a doctor brings his creation to life.

    I’ve always been very intrigued by the links between Pinocchio and Frankenstein. They are both about a child that is thrown into the world. They are both created by a father who then expects them to figure out what’s good, what’s bad, the ethics, the morals, love, life, and essentials, on their own. I think that was, for me, childhood. You had to figure it out with your very limited experience.

    Guillermo Del Toro

    The upcoming film will delve into that kind of ethics a bit, but he promises it’ll still be child-friendly, he simply believes “these are times that demand from kids a complexity that is tremendous. Far more daunting, I think, than when I was a child.”

    He’s working on the project alongside Mark Gustafson, who many might know as the animation director for Wes Anderson‘s Fantastic Mr. Fox. Though, there is a deliberate choice to tell the story of a wooden boy coming to life while everyone else is made of stop motion puppets, which also makes it stand out from other adaptations, especially Robert Zemeckis‘s live-action version for Disney.

    Gregory Mann will take on the voice of Pinocchio, who is a cheerful fellow but has a sad backstory. He’s actually carved out of the tree that grew over the grave of Gepetto’s son. the heartbroken man will be voiced by David Bradley, who gets a second chance at being a father. Ewan McGregor is also set to join as the purple cricket, Sebastian J. Cricket, who made a home out of Pinocchio’s trunk.

    The big departure will be that there are no longer other mystical beings outside of the young boy being brought to life from wood. So, don’t expect the talking animals or donkey transformations from the original storyline. He also generally took a different direction with the villain

    I didn’t want magical creatures other than the wood spirit that gives him life, and Pinocchio himself,” del Toro says. “I didn’t want a talking fox and a talking cat and the magic of transforming him into a donkey. I wanted everything else to feel as close as we can to the real world. The three main villains in the original story are the cat, the fox, and the puppeteer, and we wanted to fuse them into one

    Guillermo del Toro

    As with any del Toro film, Ron Perman is also joining the production as a new addition to the story. he’ll play an authoritarian trying to recruit the wooden boy as a soldier, which moves away from Pleasure Island. He also teases many more changes to iconic characters to make this story truly its own take on a magical creature in a real and dark world.

    It definitely sounds like he is taking a different direction and the concept art that was revealed some time ago promises a dark storyline that will surely be among the director’s best. He’s always had a way of telling stories of people that stand out from the rest and it seems the theme will remain in the upcoming Pinocchio film heading to Netflix.

    Source: Vanity Fair

  • EXCLUSIVE: ‘Lightyear’ Creatives Reveal Keke Palmer and Taika Waititi Almost Played Siblings

    EXCLUSIVE: ‘Lightyear’ Creatives Reveal Keke Palmer and Taika Waititi Almost Played Siblings

    Pixar’s Lightyear has spent years in development. As a result, it went through quite a few changes from its original conception to its eventual release. In an exclusive interview with Murphy’s Multiverse, some of the film’s lead creatives revealed that two of the project’s main characters at one point had a much different relationship than they do in the finished movie.

    When asked to discuss a few unused ideas from Lightyear‘s development process, producer Galyn Susman mentioned that Keke Palmer‘s Izzy Hawthorne and Taika Waititi‘s Mo Morrison were initially thought of as siblings. Director Angus MacLane then chimed in to explain that Uzo Aduba‘s Alicia Hawthorne, Buzz’s first partner before he gets lost in time, was not in the first drafts of the story. As a result, Izzy and Mo were made to be family so the film would have the same emotional anchor:

    They were originally siblings because Alicia didn’t exist. We wanted to show Izzy has a family, and Buzz doesn’t. Alicia got to be the personification of home that Buzz was after, and then connecting Izzy and Alicia was kind of like “oh, of course, that makes perfect sense.” But it wasn’t always that way.

    Angus MacLane

    MacLane also revealed that this version of the script had Waititi‘s Mo as a dentist. Apparently, the comedic relief character would have spent a good chunk of the movie attempting to give other characters dental check-ups, making a plethora of dental puns along the way. It’s unknown if this idea was dropped before or after Palmer and Waititi were thought of for the roles, but one can only imagine the kind of hilarious comradery that may have come out of their sibling relationship.

    Lightyear lands in theaters June 17th.

  • ‘The Marvels’ to Start Reshoots in August

    ‘The Marvels’ to Start Reshoots in August

    Reshoots have become a tradition for any Marvel project, and it looks like The Marvels has already mapped out when they return to give the production another go in the coming months. In an interview with Jimmy Kimmel, Samuel L. Jackson has revealed that he’ll return to the set of the upcoming Captain Marvel sequel in August. He doesn’t offer any details, it’s good to get a feeling of when they might be tackling the project again.

    No, I’m not done, I’m on my way back to London, I guess at some point in August, but I got to go back to do stuff with The Marvels, and I got to do stuff for Secret Invasion.

    Samuel L. Jackson

    As mentioned previously, it’s pretty common for Marvel projects to enter some form of additional photography. It commonly is to help out the production team to add elements that either couldn’t get produced due to scheduling conflicts, or simply to add some elements to streamline the project. Modern blockbusters are screen tested and the teams get a chance to test out reactions to tweak the film slightly.

    The Marvel is an interesting type of sequel, as it technically continues what was set up with Captain Marvel back in 2019, but also introduces two characters that were featured in Disney+ shows. So, it’s going to be an interesting challenge to bring these projects together while still keeping the story focused on whatever threat they are about to face.

    Source: Jimmy Kimmel via The Direct

  • ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3’ Adds ‘Crazy Rich Asian’s Star

    ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3’ Adds ‘Crazy Rich Asian’s Star

    It looks like one more cast member has arrived for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. Deadline has revealed that Nico Santos of Crazy Rich Asians and Superstore fame will be joining the threequel. The plot for the third installment remains a mystery and there are no details on who he might be playing, but he’s joining a stacked cast that has added Will Poulter, Chuk Iwuji, Daniela Melchior, and Maria Bakalova in addition to the returning cast from the second entry.

    The film is turning into quite a collection of talented actresses and actors. We still don’t know many details about the upcoming project, but it does seem more and more likely that they’ll explore the Halfworld storyline. We saw set pictures that revealed humanoid animals and even teased the arrival of the High Evolutionary. So, we’ll see if the actors are playing some familiar characters from Marvel lore, or even new additions.

    There’s a lot of potential with the threequel, as Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is pretty much the end of James Gunn‘s run with the iconic space pirates. Recent cosmic storylines have started moving into different direction while still staying true to what Gunn set up and we’ll see where the future might be heading with the team as well.

    Source: Deadline

  • ‘Venom’ and ‘Into the Spider-Verse’ Joining Disney+ in Key Markets

    ‘Venom’ and ‘Into the Spider-Verse’ Joining Disney+ in Key Markets

    There’s something about June 17th, as it’s looking like we’re getting more announcements regarding the release of Sony films in key markets. Not only did Disney+ UK announce that they’ll add a multitude of iconic Spider-Man films, which is our first hint at the Sony-Disney deal from last year, but now we also have the confirmation for two more Spidey-based titles getting added to the streaming service.

    Disney+ Japan has revealed that the Sony-Verse film Venom will also get added to the streaming service on June 17th. As it’s part of the Sony-Disney deal, we shouldn’t expect Venom: Let There Be Carnage to follow anytime soon, as Netflix has a first-look deal overall with the production company. Still, it’s addition is a big step forward for Disney+ to establish its “Marvel” home.

    That was not all, as Italy has also shared a poster confirming that Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is making its way to the service on June 17th. So, it looks like there won’t be much consistency between the markets on who gets what film. Italy includes a Venom announcement but not the other Spider-Man films.

    Disney Japan is getting Spider-Man: Far From Home while the UK has not included the title in its line-up. They even shared that they are adding The Incredible Hulk, which is a character owned by Universal Studios and landed on HBO Max in the States. So, we might get an announcement from the US Disney+ at one point on what projects they might be adding.

    Source: Twitter

  • ‘The Incredible Hulk’ to Join Disney+ Japan in June

    ‘The Incredible Hulk’ to Join Disney+ Japan in June

    Just as we got the news that Spider-Man films are finally making their way to the Disney+ streaming service in the UK, it seems one more missing part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is finding its way to the service. The official Disney+ Japan Twitter account has unveiled that they are adding The Incredible Hulk on June 17th, which is the first hint at the character’s solo film getting added to the Disney-owned service.

    Hulk was one of the last remaining external rights holders alongside Spider-Man, as Universal had the film rights for the character. As such, it’s a big move that the film entry is making its way to Disney+ especially as it was recently added to HBO Max in the United States. It made many question if the Edward Norton film would ever find its way home but with the announcement for Japan. It was pointed out to us by @jamesmutombo2 that the reasoning for these joining is likely due to them belonging to Sony Pictures in Japan and Spain (as listed in IMDb), where it’s also available on the service. @MarvelCineVerse also pointed out their availability in France.

    It should be noted that they are also only adding Iron Man now, as some of the distribution rights internationally are quite a bit different, especially for the first non-Disney produced entries due to Marvel Studios working with different distribution partners. The fact they are adding it could be a hint at the House of Mouse trying to get their hands on all streaming rights for the missing links in the franchise, as even with the addition of the Marvel Netflix series they call Disney+ the “Home of Marvel.” So, can’t have missing entries to make that claim.

    Source: Twitter, IMDb