Products You May Like
Welcome back to the Studio Coffee Run, Friday Edition!
We start this week’s installment with sad news about the passing of Tom Spurgeon from Comics Reporter. I didn’t know Tom personally, but I understand he was a pioneer in the internet space as far as reporting on comics, and was well loved by all aspects of the industry. Tom was just 51 years old, and it’s really horrible to lose someone so young and so suddenly. I offer my deepest condolences to his family and friends.
In better news, at least for the Walt Disney corporation, the launch of Disney+ went over relatively smoothly. Sure, there were a few hiccups and complaints about aspect ratios and glitching and arguments about “who shot first?*,” but the content promised is all there at a steal for $6.99 a month (or less if you get a package or even less if, like me, you got a free year through Verizon!) I added a bunch of old Disney movies and TV series to my watchlist, and I look forward to wading through all of it when I have time. (Note: I have yet to watch Watchmen or that Breaking Bad movie, so who knows if and when I’ll get to any of this.)
*Speaking of which, click THIS and laugh.
In case you missed it…
Dwayne Johnson is getting pretty psyched to play BLACK ADAM
Seriously, The Rock has been talking about this role for years, way back to when he was going to do a Shazam! movie with Get Smart director Peter Segal, and that was over ten years ago when New Line was still a separate entity from Warner Bros. With the relative success of Shazam! this past April – Fine, it didn’t do Wonder Womanor Jokernumbers, but this is Shazam we’re talking about here – Warner Bros and DC Entertainment are moving forward with their DC superhero flicks (sorry, Marty!) Johnson announced that they’ve set a December 22, 2021 release date for Black Adam. No word if Zachary Levi’sShazam! will appear in the movie or if this will push back or outright replace the chance of a Shazam! 2, but hopefully, Johnson’s first foray into superheroics will give him back his gusto. Presumably, Sherlock Holmes 3will move elsewhere…. And here’s a little scoop for you. Rocketman director Dexter Fletcher is no longer directing that movie! He told me himself at an event for Rocketman earlier this week.
DOCTOR WHO gets new writers and directors… and they’re not all white men!
No, I’m not jumping onto the diversity bandwagon anytime soon, but I do respect and appreciate that BBC America is keeping that stuff in mind as it hires new writers and directors onto the upcoming season of Doctor Who, the second season starring the Thirteenth Doctor, played by Jodie Whittaker. The four new directors are Nida Manzoor (Enterprise), Emma Sullivan (the award-winning short After Tomorrow), Jamie Magnus Stone (Orbit Ever After) and Lee Haven Jones, a Welsh director who has won two Welsh BAFTAs. The three new writers are Nina Metivier, Maxine Alderton and Charlene James, joining returning writers Vinay Patel, Ed Hime and Pete McTighe. I’ll be perfectly honest that I’m much more of an old school Doctor Whofan, and I haven’t watched much of the newer series, even though I was really curious when Whittaker took over the role. (Honestly, I’m not even sure I can get BBC America on Hulu, so I probably wouldn’t be able to check out any of the new Doctor Whoepisodes until they’re streaming somewhere else.) The new season will air sometime early next year.
All things Mandalorian…
With the launch of Disney+ this week, a lot of the talk online is all about the new “Star Wars” series The Mandalorian, because… STAR WARS!!! I haven’t gotten around to watching it yet… story of my life… but there’s quite a bit of buzz circulating around it.
- Uproxx discovered that in an EPK interview with the show’s star Pedro Pascal, he revealed the actual name of The Mandalorian, who is only called that on the show and that name is SPOILERS!!
SPOILERS!!
SPOILERS!!
SPOILERS!!
And the actual video to add even MORE spoiler space…
There you have it. Dyn Jarren.
Okay, that’s no weirder than “Darth Vader” or “Kylo Ren” or “Han Solo” or any of the other weird Star Wars names, is it? We’ll see how long before that name is uttered on the actual show.
- Clearly, Disney realized The Mandalorian was going to do very well as showrunner Jon Favreau has already begun work on the second season of the show, as he posted the below on Instagram a couple days ago:
Have we mentioned that Studio Coffee Run MVP Taika Waititi directed the final episode of Season 1 of The Mandelorian, and that he voices a robot character named IG-11? Fortunately, that character is more comedic and closer to Thor’s rock buddy Korg from Thor: Ragnarok than his portrayal of Adolf Hitler in his latest Jojo Rabbit. Oh, speaking of Taika, as we often do in Studio Coffee Run, he literally JUST started production on his next movie Next Goal Winsfor Fox Searchlight, which stars Michael Fassbender and Elisabeth Moss.
Arrow showrunner bids the Arrowverse a fond farewell with a gift
It’s pretty amazing what CW has been doing with its “Arrowverse,” bringing so many great DC characters together on television screens across the nation. There’s lots of great coverage of these shows on The Beatfrom the likes of Joe Grunenwald and… okay, it’s mostly Joe.
Yesterday, Arrow showrunner Marc Guggenheim, a prominent comic book writer in his own right, announced that it was officially the final day of shooting on the final season of the show, and as a going-away present, he tweeted out some notes from the original pitch that he and co-creator Greg Berlanti presented to the CW, which you can read in the thread below: (Note, you might have to click on the image below and click around a bit to read the whole thing.)
At 11:30 PST today, we begin the last day of filming on #Arrow. It’s been quite the journey.
This morning, I took a little stroll down memory lane and looked at @GBerlanti‘s and my notes for our original pitch. So interesting to see what changed.
And what didn’t. pic.twitter.com/sYs06jyWdv
— Marc Guggenheim (@mguggenheim) November 13, 2019
Casting Tidbits…
- I’m pretty lame when it comes to gaming –I’ve basically been playing Overwatch for the past couple years with only a few forays to other games. One of the games I’ve never played, since I haven’t had a Sony Playstation in decades, is Uncharted, though I know what a diehard fanbase that game has. Spider-Man: Far from Home star Tom Holland has been attached for quite some time to the movie based on the game, but according to Variety, it looks like Mark Wahlberg is in final talks to play treasure hunter Victor “Sully” Sullivan. As of now Bumblebee director Travis Knight is still on board to direct. We’ll see if he sticks this one out since the project has gone through so many directors that at one point, a long, long time ago, Wahlberg was supposed to play Holland’s character, Nathan Drake. It looks like things are coming into place for the movie’s December 18, 2020 release date, but we’ll see…
-
Fox 
Moving slightly away from the geek terrain, Variety also reported that Ryan Destiny, star of Lee Daniels’ popular Fox series Star, will be portraying boxer Claressa “T-Rex” Shields, who was followed in Zackary Canepari and Drea Cooper’s 2015 boxing documentary T-Rex on her quest to become the first woman in history to win an Olympic gold medal in boxing at the 2012 Summer Olympics. Universal bought the rights to her story for the movie Flint Strong, which will be the directorial debut by Rachel Morrison, the Oscar-nominated cinematographer of Black Panther and Mudbound. Sounds like a pretty cool project, as there aren’t a ton of biopics about 17-year-olds, and I wonder if this might be in the awards race sometime in the near future.
Trailers! Trailers! Trailers!
There’s some good stuff and bad stuff in terms of trailers this week, but I’m going to share them in order of my own personal interest, if that’s okay with you.
- I’m gonna start with the newest trailer for 6 Underground, the latest from Michael Bay and Ryan Reynolds, the new action-comedy written by Reynolds’ Deadpool cohorts Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, and it looks absolutely insane, kinda of like Michael Bay’s take on a “Fast and Furious” movie! This trailer plays like a comedic travel guide to Italy, and the movie will hit Netflix on December 13, but might not get a theatrical release? That’s kinda crazy, since I totally would pay to see this movie in theaters.
- Next up is The Way Back, the second collaboration between Ben Affleck and Gavin O’Connor after collaborating for the action-thriller The Accountant, a movie of which I wasn’t too fond. I have liked many of O’Connor’s other films like Warriorand Miracle(now on Disney+!). The thing that ties those together with The Way Backis that they’re also sports dramas, and this ones like it could be another inspirational sports star trying to get back to greatness. The fact this opens March 6 makes me think that Warner Bros’ is not looking for awards but just trying to find a good spot for an adult-targetted drama.
- We also have the first trailer for the new 3D animated The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run, which looks kind of strange but compared to the recent SCOOB! trailer, it could be a masterpiece! I dunno, but I liked the last couple SpongeBobfeatures despite having little connection to the TV cartoon, and I’m hoping this one will be just as bizarre… and going by the appearance by Keanu Reeves in this, it just might be! This one doesn’t open until next May.
- Lastly, there’s DreamWorks Animation’s animated sequel Trolls World Tour from Universal Pictures. Considering how annoying I found the first movie, I’m not even sure the introduction of “Hard Rock Trolls” will change my mind about this sequel … I guess I’ll have to wait until next April to decide.
Awww… and Honest Trailers went after Hobbs and Shaw this week… I guess it kind of deserves it, even if I liked it.
That’s it for this week’s Friday Edition, but come back Tuesday morning for my brother from another mother (and father and uncle, etc.) Josh Hilgenberg and the Tuesday Edition! It will be so Tuesday, you won’t know what to do with yourself until Friday comes around again… except maybe watch Disney+.