What’s going on in the TV world?
The week the BBC released the first photo of Jodie Whittaker as the infamous Time Lord from Doctor Who. It’s an interesting outfit that calls back to previous Doctors. Doctor Who comes back for Peter Capaldi’s final episode during its Christmas Special. The new season will start in fall of 2018.
New series. New Doctor. New look! #DoctorWho pic.twitter.com/0zIew8QiuS
— Doctor Who Official (@bbcdoctorwho) November 9, 2017
CBS is attempting another reboot of The Twilight Zone. Created by Rod Serling, the seminal series originally aired from 1959 to 1964. CBS unsuccessfully tried to revive the series in the 1980s and the early 2000s. Get Out director Jordan Peele will produce the new series through his Monkeypaw production company. Marco Ramirez, executive producer of Netflix’s Daredevil and The Defenders, will serve as showrunner and write the script. The show will air on CBS All Access, their streaming service which is also the home of Star Trek: Discovery.
Disney dropped the news of their upcoming streaming service a little while ago. In addition to their current shows and movies, Disney plans to extend their roster with new programming. Disney CEO Bob Iger made a few big announcements in a recent financial call. Disney will be adding a live-action Star Wars television show. This isn’t the first Star Wars show as they’ve released the successful Star Wars Rebels and The Clone Wars, but will be the first to be animated. Star Wars isn’t the only property they’re adapting for the small screen. Shows based on Pixar’s Monster Inc. and the Disney channel’s High School Musical were also announced.
Disney creating new "Star Wars" live action series, one based on "Monsters Inc.," "High School Musical" TV series and Marvel series for its streaming service launching in 2019, says Iger
— Ben Fritz (@benfritz) November 9, 2017
Drake is coming back to television, this time as a producer. He will be executive producing Top Boy, a British drama about East London drug dealers, through LeBron James’ SpringHill Entertainment production company. The show aired for 2 seasons from 2011 to 2013. Ronan Bennett, the creator and writer of the series, will be returning for the 3rd season which will air on Netflix. Bennet will also serve as an executive producer along with Charles Steel, Alasdair Flind, and Yann Demange. The show will start filming in the beginning of 2018 with a premiere date sometime in 2019.
Speaking of Netflix, they’ve begun casting for their adaptation of Umbrella Academy. Ellen Page will be playing Vanya. Umbrella Academy is a comic book written by Gerard Way with art by Gabriel Bá about a dysfunctional family of superheroes lead by Sir Reginald Hargreeves a.k.a. The Monocle, an alien disguised as a wealthy scientist. Members of the family include Luther, Diego, Allison, Vanya, Klaus and Number Five and the first arc of the series follows them as they work to solve their father’s death. The pilot of the series was written by Jeremy Slater with Steve Blackman as showrunner and executive producer.
Syfy has released the cast of their adaptation of Deadly Class, an Image comic by Rick Remender. The comic is about a secret high school where crime lords and assassins send their children to be trained in the family trade. The cast includes Dr. Strange‘s Benedict Wong, Teen Wolf‘s Benjamin Wadsworth, X-Men: Apocalypse‘s Lana Condor, The Killing‘s Liam James, Queen of the South‘s Michel Duval, Venezuelan actress María Gabriela de Faría and newcomer Luke Tennie.
Stephan James, star of Race and Shots Fired, has just been cast in Amazon’s Homecoming. The half hour drama is being developed by the creator of Mr. Robot, Sam Esmail and Anonymous Content. It also stars Julia Roberts. The show is based on a fictional podcast by Gimlet Media of the same name that stared Catherine Keener, Oscar Isaac, and David Schwimmer. The creators of the podcast, Eli Horowitz and Micah Bloomberg, will write the series while Esmail directs. According to Deadline, the show “is a psychological thriller that centers on Heidi (Roberts), a caseworker at a secret government facility, and a soldier (James) eager to rejoin civilian life. James’ Walter is a young military veteran with an underlying confidence and quiet sense of humor, who begins the Homecoming Initiative and is assigned to Heidi.”
Fox’s Star is adding a couple of singing legends to their second season. Patti LaBelle and Brandy are joining the cast. Both are playing relations of Queen Latifah’s character, Carlotta Brown. LaBelle will play her mother and Brandy her younger sister. You can see them in the second half of the season starting next year.
Despite its likable and engaging cast featuring Brandon Micheal Hall, Yvette Nicole Brown and Lea Michele, ABC’s The Mayor has been struggling in the ratings. It has been receiving favorable reviews which has perhaps led to ABC being not ready to pull the plug on it quite yet. Deadline reported that ABC might consider an earlier time slot in hopes of bolstering the ratings. Currently, The Mayor is in the same time slot as This is Us and Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Stiff competition for a new show. ABC has also ordered 3 additional scripts.
Finally, Lena Waithe has been having a great year. She won an Emmy for writing an episode of Master of None. The trailer for her new series, The Chi, dropped last week. Now she was just named Artist of the Year by Out Magazine. She is one of four cover stars. The other three are Entertainer of the Year Jonathan Groff, Newsmaker of the Year Chelsea Manning, and Stylemaker of the Year Shayne Oliver.
In Movie News…
Black Panther continues to be the gift that keeps on giving. This week we were blessed with several character posters and a new interview. Chadwick Boseman, who plays T’Challa in the movie, talked about his character and the movie in an interview with CNET released this week. He spoke about how T’Challa’s accent was a conscious choice:
“People think about how race has affected the world. It’s not just in the States. Colonialism is the cousin of slavery. Colonialism in Africa would have it that, in order to be a ruler, his education comes from Europe. I wanted to be completely sure that we didn’t convey that idea because that would be counter to everything that Wakanda is about. It’s supposed to be the most technologically advanced nation on the planet. If it’s supposed to not have been conquered — which means that advancement has happened without colonialism tainting it, poisoning the well of it, without stopping it or disrupting it — then there’s no way he would speak with a European accent.”
You can check out all of our Black Panther coverage here.
Michael B. Jordan, who stars as Erik Killmonger in Black Panther, will be moving from in front of the camera to behind it. After it was announced Jordan would be executive producing Netflix’s “Raising Dion,” it is now revealed he will be making his directorial debut with the adaptation of the David Barclay Moore novel The Stars Beneath Our Feet. The novel is about Lolly Rachpaul, a twelve-year-old who deals with the recent death of his brother and gang related pressure through building lego cities. “The Stars Beneath Our Feet tells a story that really spoke to me, and I’m looking forward to jumping behind the camera. I’ve had the opportunity to work with some very smart and talented directors and it inspired me to take on this new challenge,” Jordan said of the project.
In addition to Homecoming, Stephan James will be playing the lead in the adaptation of James Baldwin’s If Beale Street Could Talk. This week it was announced that Quantico‘s Aunjanue Ellis and American Horror Story‘s Finn Wittrock have joined the cast. If Beale Street Could Talk is set in 1970s Harlem. Fonny (James) is accused of a crime and his fiancée Tish (played by newcomer KiKi Layne) has to fight to prove his innocence. The cast includes Regina King, Brian Tyree Henry, Colman Domingo, Ed Skrein and Dave Franco. Barry Jenkins is both writing and directing the film. Annapurna Pictures in conjunction with Plan B. are producing the film.
Great news for the Star Wars Universe! Rian Johnson, director of Star Wars: The Last Jedi still gets to play in the Star Wars sandbox. Lucasfilm announced that Johnson will be creating a new trilogy of films separate from the Skywalker saga. He will be once again writing and directing the first installment with Ram Bergman. In a statement, Johnson and Bergman said, “We had the time of our lives collaborating with Lucasfilm and Disney on The Last Jedi. Star Wars is the greatest modern mythology and we feel very lucky to have contributed to it. We can’t wait to continue with this new series of films.”
Earlier this year, Universal released this photo to commemorate the beginning of their Dark Universe of monster movies. Starting with Tom Cruise’s The Mummy, movies about the Wolfman, Bride of Frankenstein and the Invisible Man were set to follow. The Mummy gained little traction in the box office giving this cinematic universe a bad start. Now Alex Kurtzman and Chris Morgan, who were hired to be the architects of this universe, have now left the project. It seems that both have brighter prospects to focus on. Kurtzman is an executive producer of Star Trek: Discovery and Morgan is writing the Fast and Furious spinoff starring Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham (and probably not Tyrese). Last month they suspended production on Bride of Frankenstein, the next film in the series, due to issues with Bill Condon’s script with no plans to resume as of yet. The February 2019 release date has been shelved. As of now, the fate of the Dark Universe is nebulous at best.
Earlier this week, it was reported that 21st Century Fox is currently seeking to sell parts of its company namely the Entertainment side – its movie and television arms, entertainment cable networks and overseas television businesses. News of Disney engaging in talks with Fox to purchase these parts spread far and wide over the internet. News of those talks being over spread soon after. However, on Friday CNBC’s David Faber reported that the talks aren’t quite dead yet. “Pencils aren’t down. [I]t does appear at the very least that they have not abandoned the idea of that combination,” he said, citing unnamed sources. This week, Fox also backed out of a deal with Joe and Anthony Russo to co-finance their television projects. The Russo Brothers are best known for directing Marvel’s Captain America: Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War and the upcoming Avengers: Infinity War. Marvel is owned by Disney.
Derek Connolly, who wrote the screenplays for Jurassic World, Kong: Skull Island and the upcoming Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, has a new project on the horizon. He has been hired to write the latest draft of Sony’s adaptation of the video game Metal Gear Solid. The director of Kong: Skull Island, Jordan Vogt-Roberts, is directing with Avi Arad producing. Metal Gear Solid was created by Hideo Kojima in 1998. It follows a soldier named Solid Snake who attempts to neutralize a terrorist threat from a renegade special forces unit by infiltrating a nuclear weapons facility. While Hollywood has put out many video game adaptations, most of them have not been received well. The last being Assassin’s Creed which received a 17% on Rotten Tomatoes. Metal Gear Solid is a beloved video game, here’s hoping they pull off something worthy with the adaptation.
Deadpool has always taken an interesting route with their promotional material. This week they released a holiday themed poster. They also announced a collaboration with Good Housekeeping. This is a special issue that’s only being given away in a few cities. Thanks to Collider we’re able to see what’s in the magazine.
In other comic book news, a fundamental shift in the comic book world happened this week. After 18 years of writing for Marvel, Brian Michael Bendis left them for DC. On Tuesday, DC tweeted that they signed Bendis to a “multiyear, multi-facited deal.” Bendis immediately retweeted it, confirming the move. Bendis began his career at Caliber Comics before moving onto Image and then Marvel. Some of the Marvel books he wrote for include Ultimate Spider-Man, Daredevil, X-Men, and Alias, the comic Netflix’s Jessica Jones is based on. He also co-created Jessica Jones with Michael Gaydos, Miles Morales with Sara Pichelli and Riri Williams with Mike Deodato.
This is real. I love you all. Change is good. Change is healthy. I am bursting with ideas and inspirations. Details to come! Stay tuned! https://t.co/S1x5JDmGTt
— BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS (@BRIANMBENDIS) November 7, 2017
Also, in DC news they finally suspended DC comics group editor Eddie Berganza after several allegations of sexual harassment stemming years. In their statement, DC said:
“DC Entertainment has immediately suspended Mr. Berganza and has removed him from performing his duties as Group Editor at DC Comics. There will be a prompt and yet careful review into next steps as it relates to the allegations against him, and the concerns our talent, employees and fans have shared. DC continues to be extremely committed to creating a safe and secure working environment for our employees and everyone involved in the creation of our comic books.”
Speaking of the comic book world, Netflix is joining it. In August, Netflix bought Millarworld, Mark Millar’s comic imprint. Included in that world are Kingsmen, which was the basis two films, Wanted and Kick-Ass. Netflix planned to make films and television series based on the properties. This week, Netflix announced that they will be publishing The Magic Order, a six-issue comic book written by Millar with art by Olivier Coipel. The series will be released in Spring 2018.
If you have anything I missed, email me at mel@blackgirlnerds.com or tweet me at jane@anon. Check back in next Monday for all the exciting news happening next week.
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