After a stunning performance in this year’s Logan, James Mangold has revealed that the success of Wonder Woman may have opened the doors for an X-23 movie starring Dafne Keen. “Patty [Jenkins]’s success with that film only solidifies more for studios that there’s less to fear with a female protagonist,” said Mangold in an interview with THR. “The more that keeps getting hit home, that ends up giving me more space turning around and going, ‘Well, here we are with a female protagonist. That’s incredible. And what are we going to do with her?’ And that’s where we are with that [the Laura script] right now, dreaming.” Read more here.
Speaking of female protagonists, and Kevin Feige has confirmed that Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel will feature in 2019’s Avengers 4. “We’re really focusing on Captain Marvel and the work that Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck are doing,” Feige told IndieWire. “It’s going to be a big part of heading towards this epic conclusion and epic finale of 22 movies over the course of 10 years. That is focus for the next six movies we have to finish and get out. The focus now is on delivering Captain Marvel and then bringing Captain Marvel’s story into the finale of everything we’ve started thus far.” Read more here.
Although many felt it was going to be stuck in development hell forever, it was announced yesterday that the first day of Venom‘s production began – and Tom Hardy will be filming the role entirely via motion capture. “The time has come that people understand that performance capture is a technology, not a genre of acting,” motion capture genius Andy Serkis told Yahoo News!. “Acting is acting, and the more actors – like Steve Zahn… and Karin Konoval who plays Maurice in War For The Planet of the Apes – the more A-list actors that come on board, like Mark Rylance playing The BFG, or a lot of actors in the new Marvel films… Tom Hardy is playing a new character using performance capture. It all points up ‘what is the nature of acting?’ and there is no difference between acting wearing a costume and make up, or wearing a motion capture suit. That’s plain and simple, it just needs awarding bodies to understand that.” Read more here.
Rian Johnson has said in a new interview with USA Today that the cast of Star Wars: The Last Jedi will be heading for a meat grinder. “When I first read the script of The Force Awakens, I was like, ‘I feel like I know these characters instantly.’ And now we get to kind of put them through a meat grinder (Laughs),” states Johnson. “And for me, part of that meant that we had to make things as hard on each of them as possible: At least part of the movie, they don’t have their friends around. They’ve got to figure things out for themselves. They’ve got to be faced with whatever the toughest thing each of them can be faced with, and they’re not going to have their buddy there next to them to get them out of it necessarily.” Read more here.
Well, this is an odd story. It has been revealed by The Hollywood Reporter that Michael Bay is set to produce a live-action adaptation of Dora the Explorer. Unlike the TV series, where she is portrayed as a 7-year-old, the live-action movie will reportedly focus on Dora as a teenager who moves to the city to live with her cousin Diego. A 2019 release date is being eyed. Read more here.
Speaking of adaptations, and Netflix released the first trailer for animated re-imagining Stretch Armstrong and the Flex Fighters. Check this out here.
Flickering Myth’s Luke Owen sat down with Jeff Goldblum to talk about his role in Thor: Ragnarok – with great difficulty. Check that out here.