Kit Harrington joinsThe Eternals,Black Panther IIgets a release date, and Richard Linklater will spend 20 years making a musical.

This week’s Ketchup brings you another nice headlines from the world of film development news (the stories about what movies Hollywood is working on for you next), covering such titles asThe Suicide Squad,?The Eternals, and?Halloween Kills.

TAIKA WAITITI JUMPING THE GUNN & ONTOTHE SUICIDE SQUAD?IN UNKNOWN ROLE

Last year, Walt Disney Pictures briefly fired director James Gunn from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (if you’re wondering why Marvel’s not moving forward on that movie faster, that’s the reason) over old jokes in poor taste were found on his Twitter feed. James Gunn has since been, but in the meantime, he jumped ship to work for Warner Bros and DC Comics forThe Suicide Squad, which will be a soft reboot sequel to the 2016 super villain movie starring Will Smith and Margot Robbie. This week, James Gunn cast one of his frequent collaborators as well as one of Marvel’s stars. First up was Nathan Fillion, who previously worked with James Gunn on both Slither and Super, and who also had a cameo voice acting role in the first Guardians of the Galaxy. The biggest surprise, however, came with the news that Taika Waititi will alsoinThe Suicide Squad. In addition to directingThor: Ragnarok(in which he also voiced the alien Korg), Taika Waititi is also returning to write and directThor: Love and Thunder(11/3/2021), which will come out less than three months afterThe Suicide Squad. James Gunn also this week cast comedian Steve Agee to provide the voice of the monstrous super villain King Shark. Warner Bros has scheduled The Suicide Squad for release on August 6, 2021, which will be five days after the fifth anniversary of the release of Suicide Squad on August 1, 2016.hired backhave a role

1.?KIT HARRINGTON TAKING THE BLACK (KNIGHT) AGAIN IN MARVEL’STHE ETERNALS

One of the big reveals at Disney’s D23 this past weekend was theas Dane Whitman, AKA Marvel’s Black Knight, in next year’sThe Eternals(11/6/2020). Harrington will be joined by Richard Madden, he of Robb Stark inGame of Thrones, as Ikaris. This came along with confirmation that Gemma Chan will costar inThe Eternals?just one year after she also costarred inCaptain Marvelas the Kree warrior Minn-Erva. The inclusion of Black Knight and Minn-Erva?inThe Eternalsis significant because both characters were long-time members of The Avengers from the 1980s to the 1990s. Black Knight actually first joined as the 14th Avenger in 1969, in-between Vision in 1968 and Black Widow in 1973.?So if one wants to speculate about a future Avengers movie, they’re both possibilities.casting of Kit Harrington

2.?BLACK PANTHER IISNAGS MARVEL’S BIGGEST RELEASE DATE FOR THE SUMMER OF 2022

Marvel Studios didn’t invent the notion of the weekend closest to May 1st being the best spot to start the summer season (that was arguably the 1999 reboot ofThe Mummy), but they’ve certainly perfected the move. In recent years, that has includedAvengers: Age of Ultron(5/1/2015),Captain America: Civil War(5/6/2016),Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2(5/5/2017),Avengers: Infinity War(4/27/2018), andAvengers: Endgame(4/26/2019), and will includeBlack Widow(5/1/2020) andDoctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness(5/7/2020). One of the highly anticipated films that was left out of Marvel’s big panel ofwasBlack Panther II, but we learned last weekend that they were just saving that news for D23, where Marvelis scheduled for May 6, 2022. No other premise or cast details were confirmed, but presumably, Chadwick Boseman, Martin Freeman, Danai Gurira, and Letitia Wright will all be back.announcements at SDCC this yearrevealed that Black Panther II

3.?BOYHOODDIRECTOR TO SPEND 20 YEARS FILMING MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG

As of this writing in 2019, Broadway singer/actor Ben Platt is 25, and actress Beanie Feldstein is 26. But when their new movie comes out, they’ll be more like 45 and 46. That’s because Platt and Feldstein have bothfrom director Richard Linklater, who famously spent 12 years making the 2014 Academy Award-winning dramaBoyhood. That musical will be an adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s 1981 playMerrily We Roll Along, which was itself based on the 1934 play of the same name. Sondheim’s play was set across a period from 1957 to 1976, and as with Boyhood, Richard Linklaterjust like how its plot unfolds. PresumingMerrily We Roll Alongis released around 2039 or 2040, Richard Linklater (born 7/30/1960) will be between 78 and 80.signed to star in a new musicalplans on filming Merrily We Go Alongover a 20 year period

4. JAMIE FOXX AND TINA FEY TO STAR IN NEXT YEAR’S SECOND PIXAR FILM,SOUL

As much of an “info dump” as San Diego Comic-Con is, Disney’s own D23 convention almost matches that. This year, a lot of that went to the, but Disney itself made a few big feature film announcements. We’ve known for a while now that Pixar’s next film will beOnward(3/6/2020), a modern fantasy starring MCU stars Tom Holland and Chris Pratt. But that’s not all for Pixar in 2020: They also haveSoulon their schedule for release on June 16, 2020. Pixarthat the stars ofSoulwill be Jamie Foxx and Tina Fey. Fey will voice a disembodied human soul in the afterlife, with Jamie Foxx voicing a music teacher who appears to kick it just before a big career opportunity (cue the comparisons toMr. Holland’s Opusand also Pixar’sCoco). Foxx and Fey will also be joined by the voices of Daveed Diggs (Blindspotting), Questlove (of The Roots andThe Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon), and Phylicia Rashad (TV’sThe Cosby Show), with Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails) collaborating on the film’s score.upcoming Disney+ streaming app’s contentrevealed at D23

5.?PAUL RUDD GROWS UP TO BE ANTHONY MICHAEL HALL IN NEXT YEAR’SHALLOWEEN KILLS

Quite the phenomenon when a future megastar gets their career start in a horrible horror movie. Take, for example,Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, the sixth film in the horror franchise, which featured Paul Rudd as Tommy Doyle, one of the kids Laurie Strode was babysitting in the first movie. Jamie Lee Curtis returned as Laurie Strode in last year’s hit “soft reboot” sequelHalloween(which earned over $255 million worldwide), and she’s returning forHalloween Kills(10/16/2020) and (possibly)Halloween Ends(10/15/2021), which will soon be filmed back-to-back. Paul Rudd was indeed approached about returning as Tommy Doyle, but due to scheduling conflicts withGhostbusters2020 (7/10/2020), Tommy Doyle will instead be. Rudd and Hall may not resemble each other, but if theHalloweenslasher franchise now serves as a nostalgia feast, the casting of the costar of 1980s movies likeSixteen Candles,Weird Science, andThe Breakfast Clubfits that theme perfectly.played by Anthony Michael Hall

6.?DISNEY ANIMATION’S POST-FROZEN IITO BERAYA AND THE LAST DRAGON

Disney has had a mystery project scheduled for November 25, 2020 for a while, but it wasn’t until last weekend’s D23 that Disney revealed that. The animated fantasy adventure will be set in a fictional kingdom called Kumandra, which will be inspired by the cultures of Southeast Asia.Raya and the Last Dragonwill mark the directorial debuts of Paul Briggs and Dean Wellins, who previously worked on Disney movies likeBig Hero 6andZootopia. The screenplay is being written by Adele Lim, whoseCrazy Rich Asiansfeatured Awkwafina, now also a voice role inRaya. The title character to be voiced by Cassie Steele of TV’sDegrassi: The Next Generation.it will be Raya and the Last Dragon

7.?EVA LONGORIA TO DIRECT THE FLAMIN’ HOT CHEETOS MOVIE

Fox Searchlight hasfor a movie calledFlamin’ Hotabout how the popular brand of Cheetos snack foods came to be. They’re hiring Eva Longoria to direct the true story of Richard Montanez, who was a janitor at Frito-Lay when he came up with the Flamin’ Hot Cheetos concept after noticing that regular Cheetos were not as “flavorful” as Mexican snacks on the same convenience store shelves.been moving forward with plans

8.?HAPPY DEATH DAYDIRECTOR TO BODY SWAP VINCE VAUGHN AND 22-YEAR-OLD KATHRYN NEWTON

Director Chris Landon is newly available as it appears unlikely thatHappy Death Daywill receive another sequel after this year’s box office disappointment of2U, which earned just $28 million domestically. For his next film,. Vince Vaughn will star as a “deranged serial killer” whose body is taken over by a high school student played by 22-year-old Kathryn Newton, whose previous work includesParanormal Activity 4andDetective Pikachu.Landon will cowrite and direct a body swapping thriller

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