Murphy's Multiverse

Tag: TV

  • Lucasfilm Executive Denies That Darth Maul Was Scrapped From ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’s Earlier Drafts

    Lucasfilm Executive Denies That Darth Maul Was Scrapped From ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’s Earlier Drafts

    Just yesterday The Hollywood Reporter posted a story detailing some creative issues that went on behind the scenes during the development of the upcoming Obi-Wan Kenobi series. They reported that Darth Maul was originally set to be the main protagonist and that actor Ray Park was initially set to reprise his role as the fan-favorite character. Yet, it seems that an executive denounced this report. Bespin Bulletin provided a screengrab of a tweet from Pablo Hidalgo, a Lucasfilm Creative Executive, quoting a tweet regarding the report and denying it, stating that “A brown sun rises. Bullshit has been spilled“.

    The report detailed that the Kenobi series saw a total creative overhaul when its core storyline seemingly was too similar to The Mandalorian. That led to Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni‘s involvement with the latter recommending the addition of the Inquisitors and Darth Vader. Maul being part of the series would’ve been an odd addition considering the story between him and Kenobi was concluded in Star Wars: Rebels. Vader and the Inquisitors make more sense, as it not only fits the timeline but there also has been hinted at that Kenobi and Vader had faced each other before their final confrontation in A New Hope.

    Obi-Wan Kenobi is set to stream on Disney+ on May 25th and will feature the return of Ewan Mcgregor as the titular character. The series was directed by Deborah Chow and written by Joby Harold.

    Source: Bespin Bulletin

  • Samuel L. Jackson Has Talked to ‘The Mandalorian’s Bryce Dallas Howard on a Return as Mace Windu

    Samuel L. Jackson Has Talked to ‘The Mandalorian’s Bryce Dallas Howard on a Return as Mace Windu

    No one wants Mace Windu to return to Star Wars more than Samuel L. Jackson. He’s been very vocal about a potential return in the role and has actively campaigned that he can wield his purple lightsaber again. There are quite a few theories that he survived his encounter with Palpatine, who used force lightning to push him out of the window. Yet, we’re still waiting for any news on a potential return.

    It seems the actor has also been getting impatient and seemingly already discussed a potential return with director Bryce Dallas Howard, who has made a significant contribution to The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett. It seems that she is also on board to have him return.

    Definitely. There’s a huge history of people with one hand returning in Star Wars… The only person I’ve ever said that to about coming back was Bryce Dallas Howard, ’cause I just did a movie with her. And she directs episodes of The Mandalorian, so, ‘You think you might be able to hook a brother up? I mean you like me, right?’ She’s like, ‘I love you, you’re amazing!’ So, ‘Put me back in there… Put me in coach, I’m ready!’ You know, I’ll learn to lightsaber left-handed. Come on, hook me up.

    Samuel L. Jackson

    There have been quite a few theories that it was Mace Windu that saved Grogu from the Clone Troopers’ enacting Order 66. Not only would it be fitting with a wounded Windu trying his best to save one of the surviving Padawans, but it would also open up for a curious reunion in the upcoming third season. Of course, as the actor will also be leading the Secret Invasion Disney+ series, he certainly could lead his own spinoff series. We all can agree that we want to see him get his purple lightsaber back.

    Source: Happy Sad Confused Podcast via The Direct

  • 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

  • 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.

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    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

  • ‘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

  • Warner Bros. Discovery to Combine HBO Max and Discovery+

    Warner Bros. Discovery to Combine HBO Max and Discovery+

    It was only a question of time, but the official announcement has finally arrived. As Warner Bros. Discovery is about to be created when the AT&T merger finalizes with Warner Media, it seems that HBO Max and Discovery+ will be fused into one service rather than Disney’s multi-platform bundle strategy. Gunnar Wiedenfels, who will be the CFO of Warner Bros. Discovery, shared the following insights into their approach during the Deutsche Gank 30th Annual Media Internet & Telecom Conference:

    One of the most important items here is that we believe in a combined product as opposed to a bundle… We believe that the breadth and depth of this content offering is going to be a phenomenal consumer value proposition

    Gunnar Wiedenfels

    He also highlighted why they aren’t rushing this concept and want to give it some time to figure out how best to approach it.

    The direct-to-consumer business is obviously further along now than what we had four years ago. There’s a greater risk, you want to get that right. Between the two direct-to-consumer products, by the time we close, close to 100 million people are going to be affected as we make those changes. So that will need some very, very detailed and disciplined planning

    Gunnar Wiedensfels

    This change won’t happen overnight, so bundling will still be available early on as they try to figure out how to merge the platforms. It’s unclear if they’ll stick to the HBO Max or Discovery+ branding, as they may take a different approach. The services are currently available with an ad-supported and ad-free variant that is priced differently. So, we might have to wait for some time before we get a clearer vision of

    what the streaming future has in store for HBO Max and Discovery+.

    Source: Variety