FIRST: A CORRECTION
First things first, last week Big Screen Scoop reported that Neill Blomkamp would be disregarding Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection for his upcoming Alien film, that is, that those films would not be in continuity. This quickly turned out to not actually be the case. In an interview with AlloCine, Blomkamp clarified: “I’m not trying to undo Alien 3 or Alien Resurrection. I just want it to be connected to Alien and Aliens”. Well, glad that’s been cleared up.
WAIT THERE’S AN INDEPENDENCE DAY 2 WHAT
I like to consider myself a guy with his finger on the pulse of reboots and sequels of Hollywood action movies, but apparently that is all a dirty, dirty lie, because they’re doing Independence Day 2 and I didn’t even know about it. I guess that’s what I get for not following Roland Emmerich on Twitter, because what I would expect-a constant feed of explosion Vines-Emmerich tweeted some casting announcements last night for the film.
Will Smith will not be returning, but playing his son will be Jessie Usher, the first big role for the young man who comes from the humble beginnings of kid’s video-game tv show Level Up and as a cast member of the execrable InAPPropriate Comedy, which featured Oscar winner Adrien Brody as Gay Dirty Harry. So very humble beginnings.
Also announced by Emmerich weere Liam Hemsworth, because one Hemsworth or another ending up in this thing just makes sense, honestly they could use one or two more, and Jeff Goldblum, who will be returning to the role of Jeff Goldblum.
Independence Day 2 is set for release on June 24th 2016, apparently.
RONDA ROUSEY AND IKO UWAIS IN A BADASS MOVIE ABOUT BADASSES
Rondamania is running wild these days, with Ms. Rousey effortlessly conquering all challengers in mixed martial arts, appearing in Sports Illustrated and following Gina Carano’s footsteps into the world of movies. With a couple of films under her belt already, Variety reports that Rousey has been cast in action-thriller Mile 22,
Produced by Peter Berg, Mile 22 will also star Iko Uwais of The Raid and The Raid 2, so if it’s just 90 minutes of fools getting kicked and having their arms ripped off it probably won’t be too bad. According to Variety, “The film explores the relationship between a CIA field officer and an Indonesian police officer forced to work together as they confront violent and extreme political corruption.” I am choosing to believe that Uwais is the CIA officer and Rousey is the Indonesian police officer.
THINGS LOOKING UP FOR DREW GODDARD
The huge overhaul of all things Spider-Man related at Sony has left a lot of people in limbo, including Cabin in the Woods director Drew Goddard, who was set to put together the Sinister Six film that Sony really wanted. The Sinister Six film now looks to be on the scrapheap (how were they ever going to make a film with Spider-Man’s enemies but not Spider-Man work?) but the good news for Goddard according to the Latino Review is that he is going to be both writing and directing Sony’s new Spider-Man instead.
Their report provides a good bit of information about where Spider-Man is going, really. The films will take on the Spectacular Spider-Man moniker instead of Amazing, Peter Parker will be back in high school but the new film will already have him established as a superhero without going into an origin story, and despite the names being thrown around for casting they are meant to be looking at a young unknown actor to grow into the role. (I will be stubbornly sticking to #Donald4Spiderman, his 31 years be damned). Honestly this all sounds like trading up for Goddard, so it looks like things worked out for him. Poor Andrew Garfield meanwhile, lies desolate in his mansion, his solid-gold phone not ringing, with only Emma Stone to comfort him. Hollywood man, it chews people up and spits them out.