News Bites: Guardians and Good Grief

Coming in a bit late today, but still technically Friday morning, at least in my time zone, it’s this week’s dose of News Bites. As always there’s a fair amount of superhero movie news and speculation, and some odd film and TV adaptations. There’s news on Martin Scorcese’s next project, and Luc Besson’s as well. So read on for what’s going on.

M. Night Shyamalan’s After Earth (starring Will and Jaden Smith) has been moved up a week to May 31, 2013.

Martin Scorcese is finally set to film Silence an adaptation of a Shusaku Endo novel that he has been wanting to film since the early 1990s. The story concerns 17th century Jesuits who risk their lives preaching Christianity to the Japanese.

For all those who wanted more Dodgeball, you’re getting your wish. Ben Stiller’s production company has tapped Clay Tarver to write a sequel to the Vince Vaughn vehicle.

Guardians of the Galaxy keeps growing. Ophelia Lovibond has joined the cast in an unknown supporting role, and Lee Pace is reportedly in final negotiations to play the villain, though the identity of the character is still unclear.

We knew it would probably happen back in October, but now Kevin Feige has confirmed the film rights to Daredevil have reverted to Marvel. This clears the way for Marvel Studios to produce their own film(s) featuring the character.

Bryan Singer, in posting a video of the crew chairs for X-Men: Days of Future Past with the character names on them, has revealed that the characters Bishop and Warpath/James Proudstar are part of the film. Bishop is believed to be played by Omar Sy, while Superhero Hype speculates that Booboo Stewart is playing Warpath. As this is the first time an American Indian superhero is going to be on the big screen, one hopes it’ll be a bit more respectful than the comics usually are… on the other hand, they’re casting a Twilight actor. Though at least he’s supposedly part Blackfoot (though the fact that he’s half-Asian is much more readily apparent). Still, he’ll look the part a little bit more than Johnny Depp.

More Kickstarter movie madness. Zach Braff has a movie he’s working on funding, titled Wish I Was Here. Braff will play a father who is struggling to provide for his family and decides to teach them what it means to be a good person. As of this writing, it’s at $1.78 million of its $2 million goal, with 28 days left.

Ready for another movie-to-TV adaptation? MTV has greenlit the pilot for a series based on the Scream franchise of movies. I have to say, I’m not entirely sure how that would work, but I can’t be the only one hoping that every single episode consists of Sydney finding out another of her friends is a serial killing psychopath. The series finale could be her leaving town, just absolutely fed up, paraphrasing Samuel L. Jackson: “I have had it with these monkeyflipping psychos in this monkeyflipping place!” (It’s basic cable so they can’t use the actual word, you know.)

Scarlett Johansson is in final negotations to star in Luc Besson’s Lucy as a woman who is forced into being a drug mule only to find the strange drug working its way into her system. When it does, she develops eidetic memory, immunity to pain and telekinesis (and presumably sets off after the people who wronged her).

I suspected it would be the case when the film was announced, but I had really hoped I’d be wrong. But no. It looks like Blue Sky Studios’s (the company behind Ice Age) upcoming film adaptation of Peanuts will indeed be 3D computer-animated. Bleah.

Rumors and Speculation

Tom Hiddleston, who stars as Loki in the Thor movies, is reportedly in talks to play the title character in the remake of The Crow.

Zack Snyder has has confirmed that he will be directing Justice League — if Man of Steel is successful. So, I guess here’s hoping that whether it’s good or bad and whether its successful or a bomb are equivalent questions.

Joss Whedon has dropped a hint about new characters in The Avengers 2, saying “I’ve got these two characters, two of my favorite characters from the comic book, a brother-sister act, they’re in the movie.” The rumors are that these would be the Avengers Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver — though as those are also X-Men characters, the question of who can film them has been a little murky (Fox still has the rights to the X-Men film franchise). However, Kevin Feige noted a year ago that it’s possible the characters could legally be used by both companies. They’re certainly more likely than any other (currently existing) brother-sister tandem in Marvel Comics, as they’re the only such pair to have both been Avengers. (In fact, the only other Marvel brother-sister pairs I can think of are all from X-Men except for Alpha Flight‘s Northstar and Aurora.)

“Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask myself, ‘Why isn’t the world perfect?’ Then a voice comes to me that says, ‘We admit it… There are still a few kinks that need working out.'”.
— Charlie Brown in Peanuts, by Charles Schulz