Richard Kelly still wants to get his Rod Serling biopic off the ground — and a sequel to Donnie Darko. Gaten Matarazzo teases big scares for the next season of Stranger Things. Plus, Jeff Nichols talks about his Alien Nation reboot, and what’s to come on Nancy Drew and Charmed. Spoilers, away!
Ghostbusters: Afterlife
During a recent interview with Living Fearless, Ernie Hudson appeared to hint that Rick Moranis will reprise his role as Louis Tully in Ghostbusters: Afterlife.
I think the studios probably want to hold that one… I love Rick. But yeah, I’ll let them share that.
Untitled Rod Serling Biopic
Richard Kelly provided Coming Soon with an update on his long-gestating biopic on Rod Serling.
Well, that is a very special project. It’s a very ambitious project and we want to get it right. We want to make sure we have the right talent and the right budget and all the elements need to be just perfect for that project to get made and we have such respect for Rod Serling’s legacy and the enormous footprint that he left in our business and in our culture. So, we’ve been working on that for several years. We’ve been working closely with Anne Serling, Rod’s daughter. I’ve adapted her memoir that she published about her father and his life and it’s a very ambitious approach to a biopic and it involves a lot of fantasy elements. There is a big fantasy science fiction concept in the sort of approach that we’re taking to try and tell the story of his life. So, that’s a really complicated, difficult needle to thread, we are definitely working on it and hopefully at some point, we’ll get that project off the ground and it’s really just about getting all of the elements to work. So fingers crossed that we’ll get there and we can really pay a tribute to Rod’s life in the best possible way.
Donnie Darko 2
In the same interview, Kelly revealed “an enormous amount of work” has already been completed on a new sequel to Donnie Darko.
Well, I’m probably not allowed to say anything more than there has been an enormous amount of work completed. I’m hopeful that we might get to explore that world in a very big and exciting way. But we’ll see what happens. But there has been a lot of work done. A lot of work has been done.
Escape Room 2
Bloody-Disgusting reports Escape Room 2 is now scheduled for a January 7, 2022 release date.
Stranger Things
When asked to describe the fourth season of Stranger Things, Gaten Matarazzo stated it’s “the scariest of the previous three.”
Yikes. I think most would probably say it’s the scariest [season] out of the previous three, which I love because it’s very fun to film.
Alien Nation
Speaking with /Film, Jeff Nichols revealed he’s broken his proposed Alien Nation reboot — which he admits “has nothing to do with the original movie” — into a ten episode series.
Yeah, I’m working on a series right now. I had this idea of how I could take that title but a situation that has nothing to do with the original movie, necessarily, and I got really excited about it…I spent three years building out an entire alien civilisation and this situation and this setup and all these characters, and it’s really what I’ve been doing for a long time. We were set to go make it. It was going to be our next big challenge for Adam and I, which would be making a big, $US100 ($130) million studio film, still in Arkansas. Disney bought Fox and killed it, which was a little soul-crushing, to say the least. But they came and said, ‘Would you consider turning this into a series, potentially?’ So I have taken it and broken it into ten episodes, and it’s under consideration right now. Who knows, people in far more powerful positions than me are deciding that. One of the tricks is, I want to shoot it like a giant film, and I’m not sure if we’ll be able to get away with that.
Nancy Drew
Nancy Drew continues to struggle with the Aglaeca in the synopsis for “Running out of Time” airing February 11.
RUNNING OUT OF TIME – Nancy and the Drew Crew race against the clock to find a way to destroy the Aglaeca before she can destroy them. Meanwhile, Ace (Alex Saxon) reaches out to Carson for a favour.
Nancy Drew stars Kennedy McMann as Nancy Drew, Alex Saxon as Ace, Maddison Jaizani as Bess Marvin, Leah Lewis as George Fan, Alvina August as Detective Karen Hart, Tunji Kasim as Ned ”Nick” Nickerso and Riley Smith as Ryan Hudson
Larry Teng directed the episode written by Celine Geiger.
Legacies
TV Line has photos from “Salvatore: The Musical”, the February 5 episode of Legacies. More at the link.
Charmed
Finally, the Charmed Ones are tasked with bringing magic back to the natural world in a new trailer for season three.
Banner art by Jim Cook