Here’s all the movie and TV news you need to know from the past week, it’s the News Shotgun.
Australian crime thriller Eyes Along the Valley finds its main cast: A new crime thriller from Australia has found its main cast with Stephen Lang, Sam Worthington, and Luke Bracey starring in Eyes Along the Valley. Set in the 1950s, the movie follows a pair of detectives, played by Worthington and Bracey, who arrive at a remote ranch in the Outback on a missing persons case and find themselves being stalked by a deadly serial killer, played by Lang. Kriv Sanders, who directed Bracey in the Vietnam War movie Danger Close, is directing the film.
Blair Witch reboot finds a director: A reboot of The Blair Witch Project is in development at Lionsgate, and director Dylan Clark has signed on to direct. Clark has directed several horror short films and is also directing a feature film version of his short Portrait of God. Original Blair Witch stars Joshua Leonard and Michael C. Williams are on board the reboot as executive producers.
Thriller Foxfinder finds main cast: Upcoming thriller Foxfinder has found its main trio with Tessa Thompson, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, and Owen Cooper. The film is directed by Aoife McArdle, who most recently worked on Severance as a director and producer, and follows a grieving couple who are surprised when a government agent, a “foxfinder,” arrives at their struggling farm to hunt for an enemy designated “the fox”.
Disney wins bidding war for new Casper TV series: After a five-way bidding war, Disney has secured the rights to Casper the Friendly Ghost and has put a new Disney+ series into development. Rob Letterman and Hilary Winston, who executive-produced the Disney+ Goosebumps series, are executive-producing Casper, which will apparently have a slightly darker tone than the 1995 film, similar to Wednesday on Netflix. Letterman and Winston are also writing the series, and Letterman will direct. Steven Spielberg, who executive-produced the 1995 film, is also on board as an executive producer for the new series.
Stranger Things: Tales from ’85 renewed for Season 2: More animated adventures in Hawkins are on the way as Netflix has renewed Stranger Things: Tales from ’85 for a second season. It was the seventh-most-watched TV series on Netflix, with 2.8 million views in its opening weekend. The show is set between Seasons 2 and 3 in the winter of 1985 as the Stranger Things gang faces a new monstrous threat that pops out from under the snow.
Jason Statham and David Ayer reteaming for new action movie: Following The Beekeeper and A Working Man, Jason Statham and David Ayer will reteam for another action movie, John Doe. Statham will play a man with no memories, no past, and no name, who remembers only the face of a woman named Eliza. As he starts to regain fragments of his memory, he realizes he was an operative on a mission that is still ongoing and that he’s being hunted by the people who sent him on it. Zak Penn is writing the script.
New thriller Cavendish finds stars: The new period thriller Cavendish has found its main stars with Sophie Thatcher, Erin Kellyman, and Joe Alwyn. Set in 1645, Thatcher stars as a woman who is accused of being a witch and being pursued by Alwyn’s ruthless witch hunter. Thatcher teams up with Kellman’s poacher, who lives on the fringes of society, and the two women fight back. Christopher Andrews, who directed the film Bring Them Down, is directing the film.
The Authority film on the “back burner” at DC: DC Studios head James Gunn gave an update this past week that the announced film, The Authority, has been put on the “back burner” for the DC Universe. Announced alongside a slate of other films and TV series, The Authority was based on the 1992 comic that featured a team of characters like Doctor, Swift, Midnighter, the Engineer, and Jack Hawksmoor, who use questionable methods in their attempts to fix the world. The Engineer, played by María Gabriela de Faría, appeared in Superman last year.
Django/Zorro film gets a screenwriter: The team-up between Django and Zorro is moving closer to the big screen as Sony has hired Brian Helgeland to write the script. Helgeland, who has written movies like LA Confidential, Mystic River, and Man on Fire, will write an original story based on the seven-issue 2014 comic. Quentin Tarantino co-wrote the comic with Matt Wagner for Dynamite Comics, following Django as he continued his bounty-hunting career and teamed up with Don Diego de la Vega, aka Zorro.
