James Franco confirms his involvement in the Multiple Man movie. Get a look at the stars of Avengers: Infinity War. Daredevil casts a major supporting character for the next season. Plus, see Lennie James’ arrival on Fear the Walking Dead, more pictures from Agents of SHIELD‘s return, and a tease for the Doctor Who Christmas special. Spoilers!
Avatar 2-5
In a recent interview with Vanity Fair, James Cameron revealed Kate Winslet is playing a member of the Reef People.
She’s very excited about it. She blazed through for a couple of days of rehearsals and saw the world that we had created, and how we do the work, and she’s very excited. She plays a character who’s part of the Sea People, the reef people. The one thing she did do is demand that she do all her own water work. I said, “All right, that’s fine, we’ll have to teach you how to free dive.”
In the same interview, Cameron admitted Avatar 4 and 5 aren’t set in stone, and will depend largely on how well the first two sequels perform theatrically.
Let’s face it, if Avatar 2 and 3 don’t make enough money, there’s not going to be a 4 and 5. They’re fully encapsulated stories in and of themselves. It builds across the five films to a greater kind of meta narrative, but they’re fully formed films in their own right, unlike, say, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, where you really just had to sort of go, “Oh, sh*t, all right, well I guess I better come back next year.” Even though that all worked and everybody did.
Multiple Man
Speaking with THR, James Franco promised a “hard R” Jamie Madrox movie.
Our bottom line MO is, how can we push this into new ground? A little bit, but still make it entertaining? [But] what I love about what Simon Kinberg and Fox and the X-Men people have done with Deadpool and Logan – it took a while to get there, maybe 10 years – but they are going to go hard R. And we’re going to take this superhero thing and really just push it into a new genre. So we’re working with Simon Kinberg on an X-Men property.
Avengers: Infinity War
Over the course of four collectable variants, The Avengers assemble on the cover of Vanity Fair to kickoff the MCU-as-we-know-it’s farewell tour.
After a decade of unprecedented success, @MarvelStudios is at a pivotal moment: the looming farewell to some of its founding superheroes, and the rise of a new generation. https://t.co/JoKFAtWZA5 pic.twitter.com/ed9u2kiNQx
— VANITY FAIR (@VanityFair) November 27, 2017
In further news, Jeremy Renner posted a set photo of himself wearing peculiar undereye masks (?) on Instagram.
Daredevil
Wilson Bethel has joined the cast as an undisclosed FBI agent who will play “a critical role in the conflict between Matt Murdock and Wilson Fisk”, according to Variety.
Rendlesham
Variety also reports Eleventh Hour Films and Sony’s international TV unit are teaming up for series based on the Rendlesham forest incident in 1980, in which mysterious lights led US air force soldiers to discover a metallic, triangular-shaped UFO frightening animals in the woods. Doctor Who‘s Joe Ahearne is set to direct.
Outlander
EW reports early talks have begun on a renewal for a fifth season of Outlander.
Black Lightning
The world needs Black Lightning in an extremely short new teaser.
Fear the Walking Dead
AMC (via Coming Soon) has already released two behind-the-scenes images of Lennie James on the set of Fear the Walking Dead.
Agents of SHIELD
Coming Soon also has cast photos from the upcoming season. Head to the link to see more.
In related news, the series has just wrapped filming its 100th episode. Syndication, ho!
Congrats to these heroes on ???? episodes of #AgentsofSHIELD! ???????????? pic.twitter.com/O30ll0ehNN
— Agents of SHIELD (@AgentsofSHIELD) November 27, 2017
Doctor Who
Finally, the BBC has released a new image and an official synopsis for this year’s Christmas episode, “Twice Upon a Time”.
The magical final chapter of the Twelfth Doctor’s (Peter Capaldi) journey sees the Time Lord team up with his former self, the first ever Doctor (David Bradley – Harry Potter, Game of Thrones) and a returning Bill Potts (Pearl Mackie), for one last adventure.
Two Doctors stranded in an Arctic snowscape, refusing to face regeneration. Enchanted glass people, stealing their victims from frozen time. And a World War One captain destined to die on the battlefield, but taken from the trenches to play his part in the Doctor’s story.
An uplifting new tale about the power of hope in humanity’s darkest hours, Twice Upon A Time marks the end of an era. But as the Doctor must face his past to decide his future, his journey is only just beginning…
Twice Upon A Time is written by Steven Moffat, directed by Rachel Talalay, and executive produced by Brian Minchin. The 60 minute special guest stars Mark Gatiss as The Captain and Nikki Amuka-Bird as the voice of the glass woman, and will see Peter Capaldi’s Doctor regenerate into the Thirteenth Doctor (Jodie Whittaker).
Banner art by Jim Cooke.