News Around the Net

Let’s kick things off with this important announcement:

After 40 years, they’re making another Spaceballs!  I am, obviously, excited.  (Also, I need to own Spaceballs: the sweatshirt.)  Mel Brooks will be back as Yogurt, Rick Moranis will be back (for the first time in a movie in many years!!) as Dark Helmet, Bill Pullman and Daphne Zuniga will be back as Lone Star and Princess Vespa, and in a cool move, Bill Pulman’s son Lewis Pullman (who recently was terrific in Thunderbolts*!) will also be in the film!

Mr. Brooks is also involved in another sequel project, though actually it’s a prequel: a Very Young Frankenstein TV series!  That’s a brilliant title.  Will this happen?  Will it be any good?  I’d love for those answers to both be yes.

And continuing on the theme of decades-later sequels to beloved comedies… here’s a trailer for Spinal Tap II: The End Continues:

Is there any possibility that could be good?  I’m dubious, but I’ll for sure be there on opening weekend to find out!

I enjoyed seeing this first trailer for Avatar: Fire and Ash on the big screen before Fantastic Four (my review of which is coming soon!!):

The problem is, I continue to not care very much about these Avatar movies.  They’re fine, but I wish James Cameron wasn’t spending the rest of his life making them.  (Though will a third Avatar movie mean a third SNL Papyrus sketch??  I hope so!!)

This is a gangbusters trailer for Stranger Thing season five, which is finally nearly upon us!

This is a great trailer for Project Hail Mary, a movie I am very excited for!  (The trailer goes a few seconds too far at the end, in my opinion, and it reveals some stuff you might not want to know… so if you haven’t read the book you might want to be careful.)

I adored the novel by Andy Weir (author of The Martian), and I think this could make an amazing movie.  I hope they do it justice!!

I’m usually a sucker for a Stephen King movie adaptation, and this trailer for The Long Walk looks terrific (and terrifying!!):

Speaking of Stephen King adaptations, looks like they’re taking another go at The Stand, this time with Doug Liman at the helm.  I’ll be curious to see if this happens.

I’m intrigued by this trailer for Paul Thomas Anderson’s new film, starring Leonardo DiCaprio:

Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul creator Vince Gilligan is returning with a new TV project, and he’s reuniting with Rhea Seahorn (Kim Wexler)!  That’s exciting news, though this short announcement clip is very strange:

Huge news broke recently that Denis Villeneuve will be directing the next James Bond film!  That’s a fantastic choice!  I was very nervous about the future of the Bond franchise when the Broccolis sold it to Amazon, but this is a surprisingly bold choice.  OK, I’m excited!!  I hope we don’t have to wait too many years for a new Bond film to arrive.  (I believe Mr. Villeneuve is still planning to make a third Dune film, before Bond…)  Click here for more on this news.

Reacher season four is in the works, and they’ll be adapting Gone Tomorrow by Lee Child.  I think the Reacher show is OK, but I love the books!  I look forward to reading Gone Tomorrow some time soon.

This is a surprise: Warner Brothers Animation are adapting the Mister Miracle twelve-issue mini-series by Tom King and Mitch Gerads into a TV show!  That’s a wild choice, as that mini-series is great but very, very weird.  The James Gunn-era DCU folks seem to love Tom King!  (The in-the-works Supergirl movie is adapting his wonderful Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow mini-series, illustrated by Bilquis Evely — which, by the way, is a GREAT choice for a movie adaptation!)

I find it very hard to fathom what Alex Kurtzman — or any of the people at Bad Robot and Paramount who are running Star Trek these days — are doing, and this announcement that Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is being cancelled after an abbreviated fifth season is another mystery.  Strange New Worlds has only released TWO seasons so far.  The third is coming this summer and I believe the fourth is already in production.  I don’t much care for Strange New Worlds, but my understanding is that generally the show has been well-received.  (Many/most of the Star Trek fans in my orbit seem to like it.)  That being the case, why decide to cancel the show three seasons ahead of time??  Why not release the new season and see what happens, hopefully giving the show time to continue to build and find new fans (and also hopefully get better)?  This feels like a pure money decision to me.

True Detective creator Nic Pizzolatto and his season one star Matthew McConaughey are reuniting, to make a movie adaptation of Mickey Spillane’s and Max Allan Collins’ Mike Hammer character.  That’s an intriguing combination!

Dan Aykroyd is involved in bringing a “third act” for the Blues Brothers to life, in the form of a graphic novel!  It’s called The Blues Brothers: The Escape of Joliet Jake, and it was written by Stella Aykroyd, Luke Pisano and James Werner, and illustrated by artist Felipe Sobriero.  Both Mr. Aykroyd and John Belushi’s widow, Judy Belushi Pisano, were a part of the development of the project.  This has my attention!  I hope it’s good!

Speaking of things I hope will be good: Aaron Sorkin is apparently seriously working on a sequel to The Social Network!  That’s surprising and somewhat intriguing.  I’m curious to see what this will be, and if it actually happens.  The original film is great.

I was sad to read of the passing of Harris Yulin, who gave a lot of great performances over the years.  The two that are indelibly impressed upon my memory are his role as the vicious judge in Ghostbusters II, and his phenomenally complex, nuanced performance as a traumatized Cardassian in the stand-out first season episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine called “Duet”.  That’s one of the best episodes of Star Trek ever made, and Mr. Yulin’s barn-busting guest appearance is extraordinary.  It’s one of my favorite hours of TV ever.  (Click here for a recent look back at that episode.)

I was also sad to read of the passing of Michael Madsen.  What a terrific, live-wire presence he was in so many great movies!!  He was always particularly great in the movies directed by Quentin Tarantino.  I am sorry now that the long-rumored The Vega Brothers movie will never happen.

There have been other deaths recently about which I was sad to read.  Kenneth Colley, who played Admiral Piett in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, has died.  Mark Snow, who was the brilliant composer for The X-Files, has also passed away.  Mr. Snow’s iconic music was a huge component of the magic of The X-Files back when it was great.  And Jim Shooter, a giant in the comic book field for decades, has died.  Mr. Shooter had a hand in many of the Marvel Comics storylines of the eighties that were a huge part of my childhood (such as the original two Secret Wars crossovers); he was instrumental in getting royalties for comic book creators; and I loved the early years of the Valiant universe that he oversaw after leaving Marvel.

In happier news, looks like the Scrubs reboot series is really happening!!!  I hope they are able to bring back the full cast.  I have a warm place in my heart for Scrubs, and Bill Lawrence has been on fire lately (Ted Lasso, Shrinking), so I’m excited for this.

I’m also happy to read that The Bear has been renewed for season five!  I’m in the middle of season four, and I still love this show.

I don’t know quite what to make of the news that President Barack Obama and Larry David are collaborating on a comedy show for HBO… it sounds like a joke, but I guess it’s serious?  I’m very curious!

It’s fun to read that the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man movies will be returning to the big-screen, including the extended “2.1” cut of Spider-Man 2!  That’s cool.

This is an interesting interview with Marvel head honcho Kevin Feige.  Mr, Feige always drops some fun tidbits on what’s ahead.  I really enjoyed Fantastic Four, but it’s going to be a long wait for the next Marvel movie…