Murphy's Multiverse

Tag: TV News

  • RUMOR: Marvel Studios’ ‘Ghost Rider’ May Release This Year

    RUMOR: Marvel Studios’ ‘Ghost Rider’ May Release This Year

    There are many characters that people want to see join the Marvel Cinematic Universe. We’ve already had a smorgasbord of new additions throughout the last few years, especially in the ambitious Multiverse Saga. Yet, that hasn’t stopped other rumors making the rounds on who else might have their future. Werewolf by Night, especially, introduced a more horror-centric corner of the MCU opening up many more potentially getting their own chance at a similar adaptation through a Special Presentation.

    Given the horror theme, the most popular choice was Ghost Rider, who has long been rumored to potentially appear in his own project. No matter which version they may adapt, there’s been quite a few rumors making the rounds that they may be developing a project. Gabriel Luna, who previously played the character in the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. series also was quite excited to potentially return to the role given his Hulu spinoff series was canceled.

    Now, a new rumor is making the rounds from Geeks Worldwide’s KC Walsh about the long-rumored project. While he does not have any details on what exactly we can expect from it, he does point to the fact that it’s currently set to release this year in 2023. If they stick to a similar production schedule like Werewolf by Night, they would have to start production in the coming months but it would be possible if they are aiming for a Halloween special. If that is true, we might get more rumors soon, and likely have to wait a bit before we find out more.

    Source: Twitter

  • ‘Shoresy’ Renewed for a Second Season

    ‘Shoresy’ Renewed for a Second Season

    Shoresy is coming back for a second season. The spinoff to Letterkenny has been picked up for a second six-episode season. The news comes after Letterkenny recently returned for its eleventh season in December.

    The series focuses on the foul-mouthed, chirp-serving, mother-loving, fan-favorite character, Shoresy, played by creator Jared Keeso. It tackles Shoresy’s journey with the embattled Sudbury Blueberry Bulldogs as they continue their quest to never lose again. Production on Season 2 is expected to begin this Spring in Sudbury.

    Returning alongside Keeso for Season 2 are Tasya Teles (The 100) as Nat, Harlan Blayne Kytwayhat (Prey) as Sanguinet, Blair Lamora (Paranormal Nightshift) as Ziigwan, and Keilani Rose (Filmsy) as Miigwan. Also starring in the series are Jonathan-Ismael Diaby as Dolo, Terry Ryan as Hitch, Ryan McDonell (The Crossing) as Michaels, Max Bouffard (Letterkenny) as JJ Frankie JJ, and former Kahnawake Condor and MMA fighter Andrew “The Canon Antsanen as Goody. Jon “Nasty” Mirasty, Brandon Nolan, and three-time Stanley Cup winner, Jordan Nolan star as Jim, Jim, and Jim, respectively with Listowel’s Keegan Long as Liam, and North Bay’s Bourke Cazabon as Cory.

    The first season of Shoresy is now streaming on Hulu in the US and on Crave in Canada.

  • ‘The Last of Us’ Becomes 2nd Largest HBO Premiere Since 2010

    ‘The Last of Us’ Becomes 2nd Largest HBO Premiere Since 2010

    Based on the viewership of its premiere, HBO has its next major hit series on its hands with The Last of Us. The video game adaptation garnered 4.7 million viewers during its Sunday night premiere between the linear cable channel and the HBO Max streaming service. This officially became the second-largest debut for an HBO original series since 2010, with the Steve Buscemi-led Boardwalk Empire drawing in 4.81 million viewers in its debut. 

    Of course, the one series that drew in higher debut viewerships was House of the Dragon from this past summer. The Game of Thrones prequel debuted to a remarkable 9.986 million viewers between the HBO network and HBO Max. The monstrous debut drew in the largest audience in pay cable history.

    Based on the Playstation video game series of the same name, The Last of Us follows Joel, a survivor of a mass societal apocalypse, being hired to smuggle 14-year-old Ellie away from a dangerous situation. From there, the series will follow a cross-country odyssey with the two characters in their struggle to survive the widespread infection.

    The series stars Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey as the two leads with the ensemble cast including Gabriel Luna, Anna Torv, Nico Parker, Murray Bartlett, and Nick Offerman. Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann serve as writers and executive producers for the series.

    New episodes for The Last of Us premiere every Sunday at 9:00 pm EST. The first season will consist of nine episodes. You can read Murphy’s Multiverse review of the premiere here.

    Source: Deadline 

  • ‘The Mandalorian’ Season 3 Directors Revealed

    ‘The Mandalorian’ Season 3 Directors Revealed

    Along with a new trailer for the upcoming third season of the Star Wars Disney Plus streaming series, The Mandalorian, comes news on the group of the team of directors that worked on bringing it together. The team, made up of equal parts new faces and old hands, looks to have leaned heavier than ever into the mythology of Mandalore for the new season of Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau‘s baby.

    Rick Famuyia, Bryce Dallas Howard, and Carl Weathers, who also portrays Mando mainstay Greef Karga, will return to helm an unknown number of episodes of the third season. That trio will be joined by newcomers Lee Isaac Chung, Rachel Morrison and Peter Ramsey, all of whom are entering the galaxy far, far away for the first time. Chung directed the highly regarded Munyurangabo, which debuted at Cannes in 2007 and later that year won the grand prize at the AFI Film Fest. Morrison has a long resume as a cinematographer, including working as the director of photography on 2018’s Black Panther, but has begun to direct more and more over the past 6 years, including several episodes of the STARZ series Hightown. Interestingly, Ramsey has extensive experience in art and animation, having worked as a story artist on films such as Minority Report, Monsters vs. Aliens and Sausage Party, and directing the acclaimed Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse in 2018.

    Season 3 of The Mandalorian debuts on Disney Plus on March 1st.

  • Live-Action ‘One Piece’ Showrunner Believes the Netflix Series can Become “an Entry Point” for New Fans

    Live-Action ‘One Piece’ Showrunner Believes the Netflix Series can Become “an Entry Point” for New Fans

    There’s always a heated discussion online about the relevance of remaking something in live-action. Some believe that these projects should remain in their original format, but there’s also an opportunity for these adaptations to draw in a completely new audience. That is something that showrunner Matt Owens seemingly believes with his adaptation of One Piece for Netflix and Tomorrow Studios.

    While being asked about the upcoming live-action adaptation, Owens got an opportunity to highlight what he and his co-showrunner Steve Maeda hope to accomplish with this show, and that is to establish this “as an entry point.” A series like One Piece consists of 1,000+ chapters and just as many anime episodes. So, it’s not an easy show to just jump into, but that is something Netflix’s One Piece can offer.

    We want to be able to use this as an entry point. We’ve all had experiences trying to get people into this who aren’t that are like: “How many chapters is it? How many episodes is the anime?” So, to be able to offer this as a new and different entry point. See, now you can jump in. Now, you can see what we were talking about.

    Matt Owens

    It’s an ambitious goal and also reflects how much care is going into this project from everyone involved. They highlight that the cast, crew, and anyone working on the project loves or fell in love with the series, ensuring they want to bring it fully to life. There’s always a challenge with adapting an animated project into live-action, but the team gives a lot of hope.

    There’s also the fact that some people simply don’t care for animation. Hollywood still struggles to highlight that animation is an art form and not just something for children. Guillermo del Toro highlighted this fact once again during his speech after winning for Pinocchio. Yet, some might not be interested to jump into an animated project or read a manga. So, the live-action project may give them that entry window to give it a chance after all.

    Source: YouTube

  • Netflix ‘One Piece’s Showrunner Teases an Update “Very Soon”

    Netflix ‘One Piece’s Showrunner Teases an Update “Very Soon”

    One Piece is among Netflix’s biggest and most ambitious releases for 2023 (if it does) but with no real update for quite some time, there’s a lot of hope that it’s only the calm before the storm. Showrunners Matt Owens and Steve Maeda are still hard at work bringing an iconic world created by mangaka Eiichiro Oda to life and also trying to avoid the usual pitfalls of anime or manga adaptations.

    There is, however, one major difference with the creative team this time around, as they are quite proactive in the fan bases for this franchise. Owens has recently participated in the Reverie, an ongoing meeting between One Piece content creators, where he offered a tiny but hopeful glimpse into what’s heading our way with this ambitious project. While he couldn’t give away any details or drop any reveals, he has given hope that an update is just around the corner.

    During the live cast, he revealed that “you’ll have something new to see very soon.” The wording seemingly implies that we’re not only getting an update on casting, but perhaps we’ll actually get more from the set or even the cast in their iconic costumes. Of course, there could be the potential of a teaser trailer of some kind, but it may also be too early to say given that strongly depends on when the series may release on Netflix. Either way, it’s a great way to hint that we won’t have to wait too much longer until we get an update on where the series currently stands.

    Source: YouTube

  • Netflix’s ‘One Piece’ isn’t “Shying Away From” the Manga’s Fantastical World

    Netflix’s ‘One Piece’ isn’t “Shying Away From” the Manga’s Fantastical World

    Things have calmed down quite a bit on the shore of the One Piece live-action series since production wrapped up some months ago. Tomorrow Studios and Netflix are working on what may be one of their most ambitious adaptations yet, as the original series by Eiichiro Oda is quite a bit different from the more grounded stories of Death Note and even Cowboy Bebop. The world includes a wide variety of creatures, cultures, and environments that are out of this world.

    There’s always some worry with live-action translations that cartoony elements may not make it into these adaptations. While visual effects have come a long way, there are still some limitations or even creatives who might be shy about fully embracing that wacky concept. Luckily, showrunner Matt Owens revealed that this series is definitely going to “look like the One Piece world” during his participation in the yearly One Piece community-driven live-cast known as the Reverie.

    The world is going to look like the One Piece world, that is what it is. Are characters going to have razor-sharp teeth when they get mad? No, we won’t have that but elements that make the One Piece world what it is, we’re not shying away from it.

    Matt Owens

    For long-time fans, this is a releasing statement to hear, especially with just how creative some of the islands become that we see in the series are. It also makes sense that we won’t be seeing the usual anime tropes for the various reaction shots, but it’s great to know that once we hit the Grand Line, there’s going to be a lot of chaos awaiting this new take on the Straw Hat pirates.

    Source: YouTube

  • ‘Demon Slayer’ Season 2 Heading to Netflix Later This Month

    ‘Demon Slayer’ Season 2 Heading to Netflix Later This Month

    Fans of the hit series Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba will be able to revisit the iconic series’ second season quite soon, as a new listing on Netflix has it set for a release on January 21st. There are no details on what is included in this second season, as the Mugen Train Arc was available as a standalone film, but was also redone in a seven-episode arc for the series. There’s a chance that they’ll simply include that arc with the Entertainment District Arc, the actual second season of the anime.

    Kimetsu no Yaiba was a popular manga series written and illustrated by Koyoharu Gotoug, which was first published in Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine in February 2016. The series ran until May 2020 and follows the story follows the journey of a Tanjiro, whose life is changed forever when his family is killed by demons. With his sister infected, he sets out to find a cure and save what is left of his family.

    The series saw a massive increase in popularity after the release of its anime adaptation. It offered a beautiful showcase of what animation is capable of, and the colorful cast of characters added a lot to get viewers hooked on its surprisingly dark premise. The series is currently set up for the next season, which will adapt the Swordsmith Village Arc from the manga series.

    Source: Netflix via Anime News Network

  • ‘Agatha: Coven of Chaos’ Looks to Have Found Marvel Studios Hulkling

    ‘Agatha: Coven of Chaos’ Looks to Have Found Marvel Studios Hulkling

    Production on Marvel Studios’ first project of the new year, Agatha: Coven of Chaos, kicks off next week in Atlanta and after months of unofficial announcements, the studio worked with THR to unveil the talent working on the streaming series. Tucked away in that announcement may have been one of the studio’s most important new castings in relative newcomer Miles Gutierrez-Riley. As the slow march toward a Young Avengers project continues, Gutierrez-Riley may be filling the role of one of the last remaining original members of the team.

    In October of 2022, a pair of casting calls for Agatha: Coven of Chaos seemed to indicate that Marvel Studios was set to introduce two founding members of the Young Avengers: Billy Kaplan and Teddy Altman. While the casting of Joe Locke as the “witty”, “astute fanboy” momentarily made absolute nobody Nicholas Scratch everyone’s favorite character, it’s much more widely accepted now that he’s playing Billy Kaplan, aka Wiccan. The case for Locke as Wiccan is significantly strengthened by the presence of a pair of casting calls for Jewish parents, a description matching Billy’s parents from the comics and accepting Locke as Wiccan goes a long way toward making the case for Gutierrez-Riley as Hulkling, assuming he’s been cast in the other role revealed in October.

    That role called for a gay actor 18-20, described as “a kind soul” with a “great sense of humor” who is totally in love with his boyfriend and has an athletic build. While Gutierrez-Riley doesn’t hit the age range (he graduated from Fordham University in 2020), the age ranges have always served as guidelines and Marvel Studios has routinely reached outside of them when they find the right fit. To that end, Gutierrez-Riley, who was a Denzel Washington Scholarship Recipient at Fordham before landing role in Amazon’s The Wilds and director Sanaa Lathan’s On the Come Up, certainly could fit the bill.

    Whether or not that role is Teddy Altman/Hulkling, of course, is a different matter entirely as is the nature of that character in the MCU. In the comics, Hulkling is a Kree/Skrull hybrid with a powerful heritage on both sides. As the grandson of Skrull Emperor Dorrek VII, Teddy (Dorrek VIII) is heir to the Skrull empire; as the son of Kree hero Mar-Vell, Teddy carries on a legacy valued greatly by the people of Hala. Marvel Studios has made a series of choices, however, that all but eliminate any of that background. Dorreks don’t exist yet in the MCU and Mar-Vell had no super powers nor was she a revered hero of Hala, so short of creating an entirely new backstory for Teddy, it seems that being Wiccan’s boyfriend (and likely being able to shape-shift) is the role for the time being. Of course, with Secret Invasion and The Marvels coming in 2023, there’s still time to add a little more depth to the Kree-Skrull War and give Teddy something more to do.

    Agatha: Coven of Chaos is currently slated to stream on Disney Plus in late 2023 or early 2024.

  • Paramount+’s ‘Frasier’ Sequel Series Adds Nicholas Lyndhurst

    Paramount+’s ‘Frasier’ Sequel Series Adds Nicholas Lyndhurst

    Paramount+ is moving forward with the Frasier sequel series, as they have no cast Nicholas Lyndhurst to star opposite Kelsey Grammar. As such, he’s the firs tone to join the new production, but it’s not the first time these two actors have worked together. They both worked at the English National Opera in Man of La Mancha, so it’ll be a fun reunion for the two actors.

    Lyndhurst is set to play the character of Alan Cornwall, who was Frasier’s old college friend who now is a professor himself. He is described as: “british, boozy and larger than life, Alan has an intellect on par with Frasier’s—if only he ever felt like using it. Alan’s mischievous streak might be just what Frasier could use to shake up his routine, while Frasier’s thoughtful guidance might help Alan find some of the direction he’s been missing in his own life.”

    So far, not much is known about the series’ overall plot, but the following logline has been released on the series: “Frasier is off to a different city with new challenges to face, new relationships to forge, and an old dream or two to finally fulfill. Frasier has re-entered the building.” Taking the character out of his familiar environment makes for a great set-up and gives the writers of the project some freedom on how to approach the sequel series.

    Source: Variety