News Shotgun 4/19/25
Here’s all the movie and TV news you need to know from the past week, it’s the News Shotgun.
Darth Maul animated series announced: Star Wars Celebration is happening in Japan, and one bit of news is that a new animated series, Maul: Shadow Lord, is in development. Sam Witwer will return to voice Maul, previously voicing him in The Clone Wars, Rebels, and Solo: A Star Wars Story. The series will be set after the final season of The Clone Wars and follow Maul’s rise in the underworld.
Star Wars: Starfighter movie revealed: The Star Wars project with Shawn Levy and Ryan Gosling attached got an official title at Star Wars Celebration, Star Wars: Starfighter. The movie is a standalone story outside the main Skywalker saga and takes place five years after The Rise of Skywalker. Jonathan Tropper, who currently has his series Your Friends & Neighbors on AppleTV+, wrote the screenplay.
Pacific Rim series coming to Prime Video: Amazon is developing a live-action series set in the Pacific Rim universe with Legendary and Oscar-nominated screenwriter Eric Heisserer. Heisserer has a first-look deal with Legendary and is coming off showrunning Shadow and Bone for Netflix, and he also wrote Arrival for Denis Villeneuve. It’s unclear where or when the show will be set in relation to the two movies or the anime series in the franchise.
Pete Davidson and Nicholas Hoult co-star in How to Rob a Bank: Pete Davidson will co-star with Nicholas Hoult in the upcoming film from David Leitch, How to Rob a Bank. Amazon MGM distributes the movie, but plot details are being kept under wraps. Leitch most recently directed The Fall Guy.
Amazon is finalizing negotiations for Highlander: Amazon is also finalizing the acquisition of the rights to the Highlander reboot, which will star Henry Cavill and is directed by Chad Stahelski. Amazon-owned United Artists is the studio acquiring the rights, and along with the reboot film, there’s potential to develop a new series.
Citadel spinoffs canceled: Prime Video’s ambitious spy universe, Citadel, seems to have hit a bump in the road. Two spinoffs, the India-based Honey Bunny and the Italy-set Diana, were both canceled after one season. The characters and plots will be integrated into the second season of the main series, Citadel, which will debut sometime next year.
James Marsden joining Your Friends & Neighbors Season 2: James Marsden is heading from Hulu to AppleTV+ to join Your Friends & Neighbors in a lead role for the show’s second season. Jon Hamm stars in the series as Andrew “Coop” Cooper, a wealthy hedge fund manager who is fired from his job and starts to rob the homes of his affluent friends. Olivia Munn and Amanda Peet are co-stars, and the first season currently has three episodes streaming on AppleTV+.
Nicholas Galitzine and Bill Skarsgard starring in Mosquito Bowl: Coming from director Peter Berg, Nicholas Galitzine and Bill Skarsgard will co-star in the Netflix movie Mosquito Bowl. Set just after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the movie is based on the real-life story of four of the best college football stars who enlist in the Marines. Before shipping out, they played in a legendary game with some of the best players in football history, some of whom will never return home. The movie is based on the book The Mosquito Bowl: A Game of Life and Death in World War II by Buzz Bissinger.
Sovereign gets a release date: Distributed by Briarcliffe Entertainment, the thriller Sovereign has a June 20th release date. The movie stars Dennis Quaid, Nick Offerman, and Jacob Tremblay and is based on actual events. Offerman and Tremblay play a father-son duo involved in the Sovereign Citizen movement who find themselves in a standoff with a local police chief, played by Quaid. Christian Swegal wrote and directed the movie.
Harry Potter HBO series casting confirmed: HBO has officially confirmed the first set of casting for their upcoming reboot of Harry Potter as a TV series. John Lithgow is playing Dumbledore, Janet McTeer is Professor McGonagall, Paapa Essiedu is Snape, Nick Frost is Hagrid, Luke Thallon is Quirinus Quirrell, and Paul Whitehouse is playing Argus Filch. The series is still looking for the central trio of Harry, Hermione, and Ron, with over 30,000 submissions for the roles. Filming is expected to get underway this summer.
