DC Unlimited's live-action series Titans will be available on Netflix outside the US. This follows a similar deal with CBS All Access to stream Star Trek: Discovery.
Titans will focus on a group of young superheroes including Dick Grayson (AKA Robin), Starfire, Raven, Beast Boy, and more. The series stars Brenton Thwaites, Anna Diop, Teagan Croft, Ryan Potter, Minka Kelly and Alan Ritchson.
DC Unlimited launched in September, promising exclusive content including Titans, Doom Patrol, Stargirl and Swamp Thing, and is currently US-only with plans to expand into Canada soon. The nascent service has entered an increasingly crowded streaming space with Disney about to launch its own with exclusive Marvel and Star Wars live-action series.
Partnerships with existing services is a good idea, mitigating risk and will mean many of us won't need to subscribe to yet another service. At least for the time being.
It'll be interesting to see how successful these live-action series are, especially given the popularity of DCTV on The CW.
To the ire of some Star Wars fans calling for her to be fired, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy is set to remain until 2021 according to The Hollywood Reporter (THR).
Kennedy has an enviable storied history in Hollywood and is most famously linked with producing many of director Steven Spielberg's most successful movies including the Indiana Jones franchise at Lucasfilm.
Since Disney bought Lucasfilm from George Lucas, the studio has struggled to replicate the success of stablemate the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The divisive The Last Jedi and Solo: A Star Wars Story's relative failure at the box office has seemingly lead to a rethink regarding its movie release strategy. So much so, director JJ Abrams' as-yet-untitled Episode IX, which rounds off the Skywalker saga, is the focus whilst a live-action series, from Jon Favreau, will spearhead the launch of Disney's streaming service in 2019.
A new Indiana Jones movie, directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Harrison Ford, is in pre-production for release in 2021.
Just a few days after the first trailer dropped, X-Men: Dark Phoenix has been moved from this November to June 2019.
The upcoming movie has already been delayed due to reshoots ordered following a test screening earlier in the year. I'd suggest this time it's because of Disney's acquisition of Fox's film and television assets, and merging the disparate Marvel universes into the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).
Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy, Nicholas Hoult, Alexandra Shipp, Evan Peters, Tye Sheridan, and Kodi Smit-McPhee are all returning to the franchise. Simon Kinberg, who has produced every X-Men affiliated film since First Class and co-wrote The Last Stand, First Class, Days of Future Past, and Apocalypse, will make his directorial debut.
Stablemate Alita: Battle Angel has been moved from Christmas to February 2019. Most likely to avoid the holiday season stampede lead by Mary Poppins Returns, Aquaman and Bumblebee.
X-Men: Dark Phoenix is released in UK cinemas 7th June 2019.
Jodie Whittaker is in the midst of promoting the new series of Doctor Who following a red carpet premiere, in Sheffield, on Monday. A first look at The Woman Who Fell to Earth dropped during The Graham Norton Show. This is the clip that was leaked prior to San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC) and lead to a formal investigation by the BBC.
The review embargo for Whittaker’s first full episode as Doctor Who has lifted. Will avoid reading reactions and look forward to being surprised and delighted. Doctor Who series 11 begins 7th October at 6:45PM on BBC One.
What did you think of the first look clip? Let me know in the comments below.
Whilst fans wait for Jon Favreau's live-action series in 2019, Lucasfilm has released an extended sneak peek at Star Wars Resistance from Star Wars Rebels creator Dave Filoni. The upcoming animated series sees Oscar Isaac and Gwendoline Christie reprise their roles from The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi.
With just over a week to go until Star Wars Resistance premieres on Disney Channel. Actress Rachel Butera, who voices General Leia, finds herself caught up in a controversy surrounding a video she posted (subsequently deleted) in which Butera appears to mock Dr Christine Blasey Ford, as the psychology professor gave testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday. Despite a public apology, some fans are calling for the role to be recast.
How excited are you for Star Wars Resistance? Let me know in the comments below.
During this week's Oculus Connect, Lucasfilm announced Vader Immortal: A Star Wars VR Series. This is a collaboration between ILMxLAB, Oculus and David S. Goyer (The Dark Knight Trilogy). Goyer most recently wrote and executive produced Secrets of the Empire.
Here's what Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy said:
“We always look for opportunities to explore the Star Wars universe in new ways,” said Kathleen Kennedy, president of Lucasfilm. “ILMxLAB is very excited to be working with David S. Goyer on a first-of-its-kind Star Wars experience which allows fans to travel to Darth Vader’s fiery, lava-ridden fortress and wield a lightsaber on his home turf."
“The very initial conversations around this project started three years ago, around the launch of ILMxLAB,” Mohen Leo, director of immersive content at ILMxLAB, told StarWars.com. “Lucasfilm was in production on Rogue One. In the film, the audience gets a glimpse of Darth Vader’s castle on Mustafar, which we knew would be intriguing to a lot of fans. This was also around the time that some of the first really compelling content for the Oculus DK2, the developer kit that preceded the Oculus Rift, came out. We recognized that VR has a unique ability to transport people to a fictional place and let them explore it. So, we thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool to let the audience visit and explore Vader’s castle, and have the opportunity to learn some of his secrets?’” … “Secrets of the Empire really emphasized a sense of space and how you move through it. It also takes place on Mustafar, prior to the events of Vader Immortal, and it shows some narrative seeds of a storyline that connects the two experiences. With Vader Immortal, we really wanted to push connection to characters and narrative between multiple experiences. So you’re not just visiting an iconic place from a movie; you get to meet iconic characters like Darth Vader, face-to-face.”
Vader Immortal: A Star Wars VR Series, originally announced as the Darth Vader VR project during Star Wars Celebration Europe in 2016, is released for Oculus Quest in 2019.
Paramount Pictures has released an official trailer for Bumblebee, starring Hailee Steinfeld, and it's pure nostalgia for G1 fans (myself included) featuring Decepticons Soundwave and Shockwave battling Autobot leader Optimus Prime on Cybertron. Surely Megatron will appear in all his G1 glory and transform into a Walther P38?
The Transformers spin-off is a welcome reboot for the franchise and sees director Travis Knight replacing Michael Bay at the helm. Like JJ Abrams, Knight is unashamedly channelling classic Amblin movies from the eighties as he tells Empire magazine:
"Growing up in the eighties, the most powerful stories were the Amblin stories. They had a thinking brain; a strong, beating heart; and a poetic soul. They evoked wonder and laughter and tears every single time. So knitting those two things together: my love of Transformers and my love of Spielberg and Amblin, was something I really wanted to evoke in this film. And it didn't hurt that Steven Spielberg was an executive producer on the movie! Having this guy who has been an icon for me my entire life and being able to collaborate with him and make this film in a way that evokes what was so special about those movies to me as a kid was a joy."
Bumblebee is shaping up to be the live-action Transformers movie I've always wanted since the animated series, movie and Marvel comic from the eighties. If Stan Bush's The Touch is played during the movie, there'll be tears of joy from this Transformers fan. In Travis Knight I trust.
Let's hope Hasbro has enough tie-in toys in stock because these are going to fly off the shelves. Especially as there's no Star Wars movie in cinemas this December.
With just over a fortnight to go before Doctor Who returns to television screens, a new trailer for series 11 has been released and Jodie Whittaker leaves no doubt who (pun intended) is in charge.
Wrote this post for my Whovians Facebook group, but thought it worth sharing here as autumn’s reign begins and in the wake of seeing the new trailer with my dad.
Doctor Who has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember.
As I’ve written previously. My earliest memory of watching television is The Sontaran Experiment, aged 2/3. The time travel series would become synonymous with watching Saturday evening television with my dad during the Tom Baker era - igniting an enduring passion for gothic storytelling - I’ll never forget seeing Sutekh overpower our beloved Time Lord, a Zygon shape-shift or a disembodied Morbius threaten Sarah Jane. The latter almost saw the series banned from the Hood household.
In the wake of a life-changing childhood trauma, a collection of Denys Fisher Doctor Who toys and Mr Men books (now featuring the good Doctor), with thanks to family and friends, sustained me until I was lucky to be discharged from children’s hospital following weeks of rehabilitation. Alas, not all the children, I’d befriended, got to go home. Combined with a school setting, Remembrance of the Daleks tapped into my PTSD 11 years later.
Friendships forged in the playground in the wake of Earthshock E1 and thereafter. Target novelisations kindled a love of reading in middle school - so much so, I was compelled to write to DWM and was humbled to see it printed - there really was no other way to ‘see’ The Tomb of the Cybermen or The Web of Fear in the seventies and eighties.
Visited Longleat's exhibition on more than one occasion. However, my most cherished memory is of the 20th anniversary convention in 1983. All tickets had been sold, but mum worked her considerable charm and we were admitted as VIP guests. Saw so many Doctors, companions and Terror of the Autons.
The wilderness years, following the series' cancellation in 1989, saw Twin Peaks, Star Trek: The Next Generation, The X-Files and more try to fill the (impossible) void left by the crew of the TARDIS. The Anglo-American TV Movie came and went whilst I was an undergraduate. Then, in the midst of a family tragedy, the Doctor made a timely return to television screens in the mid-noughties.
The series was, on the very rare occasion, displaced by transient thrills such as glossy US imports and teenage crushes. However, the TARDIS was always lurking in the background, ready to whisk me away on another adventure in infinity...
In the wake of Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Solo: A Star Wars Story being released in quick succession and the latter failing to ignite the box office, Disney CEO Bob Iger has decided to slowdown the Star Wars movie release schedule:
"I made the timing decision, and as I look back, I think the mistake that I made — I take the blame — was a little too much, too fast. You can expect some slowdown, but that doesn’t mean we’re not going to make films. J.J. Abrams is busy making Episode IX. We have creative entities, including Game of Thrones creators David] Benioff and D.B. Weiss, who are developing sagas of their own, which we haven’t been specific about. And we are just at the point where we’re going to start making decisions about what comes next after J.J.’s. But I think we’re going to be a little bit more careful about volume and timing. And the buck stops here on that."
A generation of fans (myself included) remember a time when there was a 3-year gap between instalments. This always built anticipation. What are your thoughts? Let me know in the comments below.
Earlier this week the first trailer for Captain Marvel dropped and now Variety is reporting Disney's upcoming streaming service (known as DisneyLife in the UK & Ireland) is about to be bolstered by live-action Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) spin-offs featuring Loki and Scarlet Witch.
Like stablemate Star Wars, the live-action MCU series will be boosted by a multimillion-dollar budget as Disney enters a crowded streaming market dominated by rivals such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and DC Unlimited, which was recently launched on Batman Day. So much so, Tom Hiddleston and Elizabeth Olsen are expected to reprise the roles of Loki and Scarlet Witch respectively.
Disney CEO Bob Iger on the upcoming streaming service:
“It’s a direct relationship with customers: the ability to provide more customized, personalized experiences; new ways to monetize; a proximity to a customer that doesn’t have intermediaries. You’re going to see growth in direct-to-consumer businesses. You’re probably going to see less channel watching; we’re already seeing that. You’re probably going to see less bundling of channels and more selling of specific brands, programs, etc.
I’m impressed with what has been accomplished at Netflix and Amazon. But none of them is either Disney or Marvel. Or Pixar. Or Star Wars or National Geographic or FX or Searchlight or Avatar — I could go on. So we enter the business that they’re in, in many respects, with an advantage from a content perspective that will enable us to focus on quality rather than just volume.”
Iger went on to address the matter of Marvel properties from Fox merging under the auspices of Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige:
"I think it only makes sense. I want to be careful here because of what’s been communicated to the Fox folks, but I think they know. It only makes sense for Marvel to be supervised by one entity. There shouldn’t be two Marvels. Kevin’s got a lot of ideas."
Whether or not the Loki and Scarlet Witch spin-offs are prequel series, given the events of Avengers: Infinity War, remains to be seen.
