News Shotgun 11/4/23
Here’s all the movie and TV news you need to know from the past week, it’s the News Shotgun
Superman & Lois ending with upcoming season: Considering it got renewed with a drastically reduced episode count and reduction of the main cast, it’s not too surprising that The CW announced this week that the upcoming fourth season of Superman & Lois will be its last. The final season will be 10 episodes and debut sometime next year. The combination of James Gunn and Peter Safran’s new plans for all things DC and The CW being sold to Nexstar are the main factors behind ending the series, as Nexstar wants to move toward more reality and away from costlier scripted dramas that defined the network for years.
Yellowstone universe release dates: The juggernaut that is Yellowstone continues to expand and we got release dates this week for several upcoming entries in the Yellowstoneverse. The main series will wrap up next year, after originally being scheduled for this month but got pushed by the WGA strike and ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike. After the main series wraps up with Season 5 Part 2, a new series with the working title of 2024 will debut, which is where Matthew McConaughey will take over from Kevin Costner with most of the cast of the original series joining him and another spin-off, 1944 has been announced as well, joining 1923 and 1883 to tell other stories of the Dutton family across the decades. Yellowstone is also currently airing over the air on CBS and is drawing in massive ratings.
House of the Dragon gets a Season 2 window: The Targaryens are finally returning in the early summer of next year according to HBO. The network revealed that window for season 2 to begin and the new season will be 8 episodes compared to 10 for the first season. Thanks to a largely British cast who didn’t fall under the SAG strike restrictions, House of the Dragon was mostly unaffected by the various strikes and is currently in post-production.
The White Lotus and Welcome to Derry delayed: In other HBO/Max news, the upcoming third season of The White Lotus has been delayed to 2025, originally scheduled to debut sometime this year and the IT prequel series, Welcome to Derry, has also been delayed to 2025 after being originally planned for Halloween this year. Season 3 of The White Lotus takes the series to Thailand while Welcome to Derry comes from IT and IT Chapter Two director Andy Muschietti and his sister/producer Barbara Muschietti and expands on the world of the Stephen King novel and IT movies.
Futurama renewed for two more seasons: Hulu has renewed Futurama for 20 episodes or two more seasons, taking the series into seasons 13 and 14. The reboot, which was season 11, debuted earlier this year and the next 10 episodes of that order, which will be season 12, will debut next year. The revived series did well on the Nielsen streaming charts, remaining in the top 10 for most watched streaming series for 6 weeks.
Prison Break revival in development: Another daring escape may be in the works at Hulu, as a revival of Prison Break is in development. Mayans MC showrunner Elgin James is developing the new Prison Break, which will be a new chapter with new characters in the franchise and most likely will not feature Wentworth Miller, Dominic Purcell, or the rest of the original cast. The last entry in the franchise was a limited series/season 5 that debuted on Fox in 2015.
Disney buying out Comcast’s stake in Hulu: Speaking of Hulu, one of the biggest pieces of news is that Disney is buying out Comcast’s stake in Hulu, giving Disney 100% control of the streaming platform. When Hulu was first founded, it was a joint venture between NBC, ABC, and Fox (or more accurately their parent corporations). When Disney bought Fox, they gained Fox’s control and 2/3 of the platform. Disney will pay Comcast $8.6 billion for the remaining control and they expect the deal to close by the end of this year. NBC/Comcast has its own streaming platform now, Peacock, which is where you will most likely need to look for their network offerings and offerings from their other channels and platforms. Disney has already been cross-pollinating between Disney+ and Hulu, with content like the new Goosebumps being available on both platforms.
A24’s Death of a Unicorn adds new cast members: A24’s upcoming new movie, Death of a Unicorn, has revealed the main cast that are joining the previously announced starring duo of Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega. Richard E. Grant, Téa Leoni, Will Poulter, Anthony Carrigan, Sunita Mani, Jessica Hynes, and Stephen Park round out the main cast. The movie follows a man, played by Rudd, and his daughter, played by Ortega, who accidentally hit and kill a unicorn with their car. Grant plays Rudd’s billionaire boss, who wants to exploit the unicorn corpse’s magical properties. The movie is the feature film debut of Alex Scharfman, who also wrote the script.
Salem’s Lot remake seems to be heading directly to Max: Warner Bros. Discovery has had a remake of Salem’s Lot ready to go, originally planning on a theatrical release, but now sources are saying the movie may head directly to Max. The decision is apparently not any reflection on the movie’s quality but based on the fact that the two major Hollywood strikes are most likely going to lead to a drought of original content for Max, so they need things like Salem’s Lot to fill the gap. The movie is based on the Stephen King novel, where a writer returns home to the town of Jerusalem’s Lot and finds it taken over by vampires. There were TV miniseries based on the novel in 1979 and 2004. Lewis Pullman stars in this new movie version with Makenzie Leigh, Bill Camp, Pilou Asbaek, Alfre Woodard, and William Sadler co-starring and Gary Dauberman directing.
Michael Mann developing an English remake of the Korean thriller Veteran: Following up his upcoming Ferrari biopic with Adam Driver and Heat 2, Michael Mann is looking to adapt the Korean thriller Veteran into an English language version. The original version was directed by Ryoo Seung-wan and follows a cop who investigates the sadistic heir to a corporate fortune. Despite the plot, the movie featured lots of comedy, which isn’t something Mann has brought to any of his projects, so his version may have a more serious tone.
Poltergeist TV series in development at Amazon: After they purchased MGM, Amazon has been looking to use the new IP they acquired, which includes Poltergeist. Amazon is in the early stages of developing a TV series based on the horror classic but there are no details or writers/creatives attached yet. Poltergeist did have a TV series in the past, Poltergeist: The Legacy, which aired on Showtime for three seasons before moving to Sci-Fi channel for its fourth and final season in 1999.
Chuck Norris back on screen with Agent Recon: With the last major appearance on film from Chuck Norris being The Expendables 2, it’s exciting news that the action legend is back next year, co-starring in Agent Recon. Directed by and co-starring Derek Ting, the movie co-stars Norris and also Marc “Beastmaster” Singer as part of a special forces team that is sent to investigate a base that has been experimenting with exterrestrial technology and has to battle a hostile alien force. The movie will be distributed by Quiver next year.
Several new cast members join Ron Howard’s Eden: Ron Howard’s new project, the survival thriller Eden, has added several new cast members. Daniel Bruhl, Jude Law, and Ana De Armas were originally cast in the movie, which had the former title of Origin of the Species, and now Sydney Sweeney and Vanessa Kirby have joined the cast, replacing Alicia Vikander and Daisy Edgar-Jones. The movie is based on a real-life unsolved mystery from a remote island in the Galapagos. The movie will begin production at the end of this month.
Captain Nemo series coming to AMC: A new TV series based on 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Nautilus, was originally planned to be a Disney+ series but was axed as a cost-cutting measure but AMC has picked up the series for its AMC+ streaming platform, as well a regular cable AMC next year. The series stars Shazad Latif as Captain Nemo, a former Indian prince who is stripped of his birthright by the East India Mercantile Company and forms a ragtag crew to pilot the incredibly advanced submersible, the Nautilus, and seek revenge while exploring a new underwater world.
It Follows sequel in development: Indie horror hit It Follows is getting a sequel, They Follow, with director David Robert Mitchell and star Maika Monroe returning. The original movie follows Monroe as Jay, who becomes the latest target for an entity that constantly knows where she is and will kill her if it catches her, with the only way to escape being to have sex with someone to pass the curse to them. There are no plot details about the sequel but it will be distributed by Neon and begin shooting next year.
