ALL-NEW YOUNG-BRIT SPIDER-MAN CA-ST
After an extensive search of scrawny white dudes with the same “look like a 12 year old forever” affliction as Salazar from Resident Evil 4, Sony and Marvel have finally found their new Spider-Man: 19 year old Brit Tom Holland.
Variety reports that after some back and forth over whether they should cast an actual high school aged actor or somebody a little older who could still conceivably play a teen over a number of years, Holland was chosen because a) according to Tom Rothman-Sony Pictures Motion Pictures Group chairman-Holland’s screen tests were “special” and b) child labour laws, y’all.
Though not a big name, Holland has starred in a number of films already, most notably The Impossible, the movie about the 2004 tsunami and how it really put a dampener on the holiday of some wealthy white people. Holland has also starred on stage in the musical version of Billy Elliot. With all these lithe wide-eyed Brits taking up the Spidey mantle, Jamie Bell really did just miss the boat on this part didn’t he? At least he’ll still be playing Ben Grimm (!?)
Also announced is the director for the next Spider-Man film, little-known director Jon Watts, who has helmed a recent film with young actors in Cop Car as well as the horror movie Clown, which is about a man’s body being taken over by an evil clown costume that wants to eat children…a bit like Venom really, except gratuitous and dumb. A bit like Carnage, then.
ALL-MALE GHOSTBUSTERS SLIMES CHANNING TATUM
Not to sound like an aul’ grump, but movies these days are becoming a bit like Happy Meal toys. You have to collect them all, they’re all structurally the same under different coats of paint, and sometimes they’ll put out one that’s the same thing but for boys and girls. Like Ghostbusters, the movie franchise that apparently wants all the boys on one side of the movie theater and all the girls on the other, like a priest running a school dance.
Channing Tatum is one of the potential stars of Ghostbusters For Men Now With Added Chunks and recently spoke about the project on the Howard Stern show. Tatum spoke on how original director Ivan Reitman is involved and interested in proceedings, but said “that thing’s gotten messy to be honest. There’s a lot of people doing a lot of things on Ghostbusters… Yeah. I don’t know, is the answer.” It seems he means messy in the sense that it’s all up in the air and there’s too many cooks and such, but we’ve all decided it means he’s been slimed, yes? Tatum said that in comparison to the Paul Feig-helmed Ghostbuster For Women Now With Fancy Lady Font, which has started filming, the men’s version is still in very early stages. Yes, Lady Ghostbusters is professional and well-to-do, but Dude Ghostbusters is a disorganised slob. Maybe the two projects improbably hook up one night and Lady Ghostbusters gets pregnant, and they’ve got to get it together. There could be a movie in it!
CHEW NEWS
Chew has been one of the best comic series around for the last few years. Written by John Layman and with art by Guillory the story of Tony Chu, a government agent with the ability of ‘cibopathy’, which gives him sense memories of everything he eats, set in a world where eating chicken is outlawed, there’s a government conspiracy over bird flu, indecipherable messages from space cover the sky line and the best character is a cyborg luchador rooster. It’s hilarious, a little dark and very imaginative. Like most comics that are good (and some that are bad), Chew is getting a screen adaptation, which has added David Tennant to its cast.
The property has floated around Hollywood for a while as either a movie or a television series (according to Layman, at one point a studio wanted Keifer Sutherland for Asian-American Tony Chu), its now being adapted as an animated film, with nerd icon Tennant cast as the voice of Mason Savoy, an erudite fellow cibopath. He joins The Walking Dead‘s Steven Yeung as Tony Chu and another nerd favourite Felicia Day as Amelia Mintz, Tony’s love interest and food critic with the ability to write so evocatively about food that readers can actually taste it (you’d be surprised at how many food-based abilities one story can fit). Sadly, Yeun and Day both recorded their parts some time ago, Tennant is stepping in for the late Robin Williams, a fan of the series who had agreed to voice Savoy before his untimely death last year. Though that is bittersweet, it’s still going to be neat to see an animated Chew movie, and Tennant should do a good job.