News Shotgun 9/25/21
Here’s a look at the movie and TV news from the past week:
- Marvel suing to keep character rights: Disney has filed five different lawsuits to the heirs of some of the comic creators that created characters like Spider-Man, Thor, Doctor Strange, Ant-Man, and more as the families had filed termination notices with the US Copyright Offices, seeking to end Marvel’s license to the characters. If Disney were to lose their lawsuits, they would be legally obligated to share the ownership of the characters with the families of the person who created them. Disney is suing and offering the argument that the characters were created under a “work for hire” agreement and the families have no legal claim. Marvel won a similar case using that argument when Jack Kirby’s heirs sued over the rights to the characters he created at Marvel.
- Super Mario movie cast revealed: During the Nintendo Direct this past Thursday, Nintendo revealed the voice cast for the upcoming animated Super Mario movie coming from Illumination. Chris Prat is Mario, Anya Taylor-Joy is Peach, Charlie Day is Luigi and Jack Black is Bowser. The actual voice of Mario, Charles Martinet, will appear in the movie via “surprise cameos” and Keegan-Michael Key, Fred Armisen, Seth Rogen, Kevin Michael Richardson, and Sebastian Maniscalco are co-starring as well. The movie arrives in Holiday 2022.
- Tiger King 2 coming to Netflix: With at least one dramatization still in development, Netflix is bringing a documentary sequel to Tiger King to the service as part of a wave of new true crime documentaries. Directors Eric Goode and Rebecca Chaiklin are directing the sequel series, although what it will be about is not clear as Joe Exotic has been in prison.
- Action movie Assassin Club gets all-star cast: A new action thriller movie, Assassin Club, has gotten an all-star cast to star with Henry Golding, Noomi Rapace, Sam Neill and Suicide Squad’s Daniela Melchior co-starring. Camille Delamarre, the director of Transporter: Refueled, is directing and the movie follows Golding as an assassin hired to kill 6 targets around the world. He soon finds that the targets are actually fellow assassins and they’ve all been hired to take each other out.
- The Howling getting a 4K release and theatrical re-release: Joe Dante’s The Howling is one of the most beloved werewolf movies in horror history and it’s gotten a 4K remaster that will be out on October 25th. The movie will also return to theaters with this new remaster on October 20th to celebrate the movie’s 40th anniversary.
- Fantastic Beasts 3 gets official title and release date: Despite lots of backstage drama, including removing Johnny Depp and the ongoing JK Rowling controversies, Fantastic Beasts 3 is coming on April 15th, 2022. The movie is officially titled Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore and it continues Dumbledore’s mission to stop the dark wizard Grindelwald. In The Secrets of Dumbledore, he assembles a team that includes Newt Scamander to undertake a dangerous mission. Mads Mikkelsen took over the role of Grindelwald from Depp and Jude Law, Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Alison Sudol, Ezra Miller, Dan Fogler, and Jessica Williams round out the cast.
- Chris Colombus directing House of Secrets for Disney+: Speaking of Harry Potter, the man who directed the first two entries, Chris Colombus, is directing a new magical series for Disney+, House of Secrets. It’s based on a novel series that Colombus co-wrote with Ned Vizzini. The series follows a trio of siblings whose family moves into the Victorian home of an occult novelist, Denver Kristoff. The siblings find that the house has magical powers and they are transported to fantastical interconnected worlds based on Kristoff’s novels.
- Netflix purchases Roald Dahl Story Company: Netflix has made a deal to purchase the Roald Dahl Story Company. This gives them the full catalog to Dahl’s various novels and the ability to create whatever movies and TV shows they want based on them. Two projects were already in the works before the deal, a series based on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and an adaptation of the Matilda musical. In addition to movies and TV shows, Netflix is also looking at publishing, games, immersive experiences, live theater, and consumer products.
- Paramount+/Showtime bundle available: Until October 20th, there is currently a deal where you can get Paramount+ and Showtime bundled together for $10 a month for ad-supported Paramount+ and $13 for no ads. Currently, Paramount+ by itself is $5 and $10 for the ad-supported and ad-free plans and Showtime is $11 by itself. The bundle was previously offered on Apple TV+ as an add-on but this is the first time it’s available direct to consumers.
