Corona, Hamm, Batmobile: Weekly Round Up

9th March 2020

Corona, Hamm, Batmobile: Weekly Round Up. In case you haven’t been paying attention to the news recently, Corona virus is causing panic the world over. And while you’d be forgiven for thinking the only movie is might upset would be the latest Fast and Furious (Corona is their drink of choice, after all), and while there are rumors Fast 9 will be pushed back, it turns out the Corona panic is spreading even further across Hollywood, with studios quickly trying to rework their plans for 2020.

Among the movie news related to the virus is the cancelling of SXSW, as well as the possible cancelling of Cannes. But it’s in the big budget movie releases that the biggest movie stories lay.

First up we have the new James Bond movie, No Time To Die, which apparently has plenty of time now, since Sony pushed the release of the film back from April 10^th to November 25^th. The decision came, apparently, due to an online petition and could reportedly cost the studio $30 million. The studio also moved their upcoming WWII movie Greyhound, although they have denied that this is related to Coronavirus.

Disney have also delayed the release of Mulan in China, where a reported 70,000 screens have been closed down. Mulan has been delayed “indefinitely”, as had Sonic the Hedgehog, while it is also possible that Marvel’s upcoming Black Window solo outing (also titled Black Widow) will have its release date pushed back.

If all of this reminds you of Stephen Soderberg’s excellent Contagion, then you’ll likely be interested by out next piece of news.

Soderberg is a man with an intriguing career (and an even more intriguing filmography), and his next movie, Kill Switch, looks set to continue his trend of picking left-field projects and running with them.

Josh Brolin was set to appear in the film but has had to drop out due to other commitments, and this week we learned that John Hamm, of Mad Men fame, has been snapped up to replace him. Hamm will be playing a cop who is trying to find “a trio of criminals who carry out a home invasion, only to wonder if they’ve been double-crossed when the job goes sideways”.

Hamm will be starring alongside Don Cheadle, Sebastian Stan and Cedric the Entertainer. So, even if it weren’t for Soderberg’s involvement (which is always a plus in my book) I’d be up for this particular ride.

One of the most surprising stories of the year so far has undoubtedly been the fact that it looks like Mr Evil Dead himself, Sam Raimi will be taking on directing duties for the upcoming Doctor Strange movie. If true, then this movie will quite quickly become my most anticipated blockbuster possibly ever, especially considering how well Raimi’s OTT sensibilities would mesh with the Sorcerer Supreme and the fact that film has the bat-shit crazy title Doctor Strange In The Multi-Verse of Madness.

But what of the film’s original director, Scott Derrickson? After all, he was the one who brought Strange into the MCU first time around, and he was also the one who promised us that the sequel was going to lean more into the horror aspects of the character (an exciting prospect given Derrickson’s background directing horror films).

Well, this week we learned that he is now in talks with Paramount to potentially take on directing duties for their long in development action-adventure project Bermuda. The actual details of Bermuda remain a mystery (what a pun! This is why you come here, folks!), although it isn’t much of a stretch to imagine that it will somehow involve Bermuda.

The film is being produced by Skydance Media, who were the company behind Paramounts Star Trek reboot movies – you know the ones, the ones J J Abrams turned into his Star Wars pitch, rather than make an actual Star Trek movie – but don’t let that put you off too much. Derrickson’s involvement certainly makes this project slightly more interesting than it was original (could it be leaning more into the horror itself?), and as if that wasn’t enough, this week we also found out that Chris Evans is reportedly in talks to star.

And while we’re on the topic of Marvel faces appearing in action-adventure projects, the Tom Holland starring video-game adaptation Uncharted got another star added to its cast this week.

Antonio Banderas has officially signed up to appear in the film, which is being described as an “origin story” by co-star Mark Whalberg, who also compared it to Indiana Jones and The Thomas Crown Affair. Uncharted will be directed by Ruben Fleischer, who took on the job after it was announced that he wasn’t returning to direct Venom 2.

Finally, this week we end on a bit of an odd one.

While rumors have circulated for years that there would be a sequel to Disney’s now classic Halloween comedy Hocus Pocus, all of them turned out ultimately not to be true. For my money, it was probably for the best, since we all love the original and we don’t want anyone ruining that for us.

Our dark overlords at Disney know better though, and so Hocus Pocus 2 was announced late last year, with it planned to premiere on their streaming service Disney + (because if they horde this stuff then you’ve got to f**king buy it, see?).

Well, this week we learned that the sequel will be directed by Adam Shankman, who is the man behind Rock of Ages and the Hairspray remake, but it perhaps better known for his work as one of the judges on reality show So You Think You Can Dance? It’s not yet know whether the original trio of Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy, and Sarah Jessica Parker will return to their now iconic role, but it’s a safe bet to assume they will. Disney find a way.

Oh, there’s also a new Batmobile out there now for the Matt Reeves directed The Batman. But since every piece of news for this movie has been exciting, interesting, cool, or intriguing until this thing showed up this week, I’ve decided not to talk about it.

Corona, Hamm, Batmobile: Weekly Round Up

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