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Howdy Outposters, I hope you all had a great weekend! There’s lots of news starting to crop up now the SAG AFTRA strikes are over, some of it good and some of it meh, and some in between. This article is the latter. A selection of stories that don’t quite warrant an entire page to themselves but are newsworthy enough to maybe give you a little tingly feeling in your nether regions.
Now You See Me 3
The Ocean 11 meets magicians franchise is getting a third movie and it’s not just any sequel, oh no, this bad boy is going to be a reimagining. Lionsgate Motion Picture Group Chair Joe Drake made the announcement at the studio’s recent investor call. He confirmed that Ruben Fleischer was on board to direct the project.
“We reimagined Now You See Me with Ruben Fleischer, who is an absolute master at shepherding franchises. If you think he did Venom and Uncharted, and we couldn’t be happier about that. That’s going to start in the spring.”
Wait a minute, Fleischer is a “master at shepherding franchises” but he did Venom and Uncharted? Has Joe Drake seen those films?!
The first two Now You See Me movies raked in $700M at the box office on a budget of just $35M and $120M respectively. So they turned a tidy profit but the fact it’s taken 7 years to get as far as discussing “reimagining” a third installment, suggests to me that maybe the appetite for more isn’t really there.
The films included actors like Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Daniel Radcliffe, Isla Fisher, Morgan Freeman, and the odious Mark Ruffalo. Who, if any, of the case will be returning is as big a mystery as why they think there is a market for NYSM3.
From left to right: Carnage, Lex Luthor, a woman, Green Goblin’s brother, Lucius Fox, Harry Potter, The Hulk.
More John Wick
Christ almighty, they are milking this franchise! Chad Stahelski recently joined Mike DeAngelo for an episode of The Discourse podcast where he spoke about more Wickverse to come. Stahelski wasn’t involved with the recent show, The Continental, but he did reveal that he’s getting his hands on yet another separate spin-off based on The High Table.
Stahelski wouldn’t reveal too much but said he and his team are being careful not to deliver a show full of the cliches that Austin Powers took the piss out of.
“Lionsgate is having us develop a John Wick TV show, so we thought we could explore The High Table in that a little bit. An actual table with the stereotypes and tropes of evil from different ethnicities from all over the world. We’re never going to show the whole High Table; we’ll show the representatives, but we’ll always keep some of that mystery.”
When pushed about what kind of show would be separate from The Continental, Stahelski said The High Table would expand on some of the characters from John Wick 4.
“Yeah, I love Donnie, I love Rina, love the Tracke. The TV show and the ancillaries will give us a chance to expand the kind of fun world we’ve created, and it doesn’t have to be John Wick, the character specific, you know what I mean so that we can explore all that stuff.”
I gave up on John Wick after the second movie. I found the first one entertaining enough, but the second was copy, paste, rinse, and repeat. I got about 15 minutes into John Wick 3. Still, after watching him beat up a giant with a book in a library, and doing it in silence so as to not disturb the punters, I quickly came to the conclusion that I was losing too many brain cells on this fiasco and it wasn’t worth it.
John Wick is looking up how to cure bow legs before this giant dude ruined his night.
Even More John Wick
Chad wasn’t finished there, the filmmaker also revealed a John Wick anime project is also in the works.
“We’re really excited about it because we’re doing a Japanese anime because I love Japanese anime so much. So to create all the cool stories that anime could achieve better than we could and the TV show to expand our world, we’ll still get our fix, you know what I mean? And we’ll still have all the fun.”
At this stage, I am expecting a spin-off show about John Wick’s mum in the style of The Golden Girls. A children’s John Wick show in a similar vein to that of the Teletubbies, and why stop there? Let’s do a Knight Rider version based on John Wick’s fucking car. What a load of tosh.
Terminator: The Anime Series
Talking of anime and franchises that have been milked to death, The Terminator is back, and this time he’s going to be an anime series over on Netflix. Under the banner of Terminator: The Anime Series, the show will follow new characters and is created by Japanese animation studio Production IG of Ghost in the Shell fame.
The official synopsis is as follows:
“2022: A future war has raged for decades between the few human survivors and an endless army of machines. 1997: The AI known as Skynet gained self-awareness and began its war against humanity. Caught between the future and this past is a soldier sent back in time to change the fate of humanity. She arrives in 1997 to protect a scientist named Malcolm Lee who works to launch a new AI system designed to compete with Skynet’s impending attack on humanity. As Malcolm navigates the moral complexities of his creation, he is hunted by an unrelenting assassin from the future which forever alters the fate of his three children.”
“Come with me if you want to eat.”
Ahh, “SHE” arrives in 1997. Well, maybe it could be good. Let’s see what else that has to say about this show. Matt Tomlin is the showrunner, executive producer, and writer. Skydance will executive produce and Masashi Kudo will direct. Tomlin adds:
“Anyone who knows my writing knows I believe in taking big swings and going for the heart. I’m honored that Netflix and Skydance have given me the opportunity to approach Terminator in a way that breaks conventions, subverts expectations, and has real guts.”
Subverts expectations, a female Kyle Reese character, and a franchise that peaked in 1991. I’m sure this will be a huge success!
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