There’s a lot of breaking news in Hollywood happening every minute. In the age of the blockbuster, it’s easy for some smaller movie and television news to slip through the crack. Last Week in Hollywood is our new weekly series highlighting all the interesting news from the last week that we thought didn’t warrant its own post, but was still worth mentioning. It’s less personal opinions and more a hearty roundup of what you might have missed.
Universal Developing Twister Sequel
Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment are developing a big-scale sequel to 1996’s Twister. Mark L. Smith wrote the script for the upcoming sequel, currently titled Twisters, which will reportedly follow the daughter of Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton’s characters, who has also caught the storm-chasing bug her parents had. Source state that Universal/Amblin are hoping to bring Hunt back.
Universal and Warner Bros. are co-financing Twisters, with Universal taking the creative lead on the picture. Frank Marshall is producing. A director is currently being sought, with Jimmy Chin & Elizabeth Chai Vaserhelyi (Free Solo), Dan Trachtenberg (Prey), and Travis Knight (Kubo and the Two Strings) reportedly in contention. | Source: Deadline
Green Lantern Being Redeveloped at HBO Max
HBO Max‘s Green Lantern series is undergoing a creative overhaul. The project, which has been in development since 2019, will no longer focus on Alan Scott and Guy Gardner. Instead, John Stewart, one of DC’s first Black superheroes and one of the longest-service Green Lanterns, will be the focus.
Writer-showrunner Seth Grahame-Smith is no longer with the project. Finn Wittrock and Jeremy Irvine, who had previously been cast as Gardner and Scott, respectively, have also departed the series. The original premise for the series was to tell “a story spanning decades and galaxies, beginning on Earth in 1941 with the very first Green Lantern, secretly gay FBI agent Alan Scott (Irvine), and 1984, with cocky alpha male Guy Gardner (Wittrock) and half-alien Bree Jarta.” | Source: Deadline
First Look at Magic Mike’s Last Dance
Warner Bros. has released a first-look photo for Magic Mike’s Last Dance, the third and final film in the Magic Mike franchise. See it above.
Channing Tatum returns as the title character, with Steven Soderbergh back as director after skipping the second film. Reid Carolin wrote the screenplay. The threequel is scheduled to open in theaters on February 10, 2023. | Source: Warner Bros.
Shelley Duvall Returns to Acting with The Forest Hills
Shelley Duvall will make a cameo in director Scott Goldberg’s The Forest Hills, which also stars Edward Furlong, Chiko Mendez, and Dee Wallace. Duvall is best known for playing Wendy Torrance in Stanley Kubrick’s horror classic The Shining. The Forest Hills will mark her first acting role in 20 years.
In The Forest Hills, “Duvall plays the mother of a tormented man, played by Mendez, and the voice in his head as he faces nightmarish visions following a head injury sustained in the Catskills. Furlong plays Billy, a man who encourages the tormented man to become a werewolf.” | Source: The Hollywood Reporter
Ironheart Maybe Casts Sacha Baron Cohen
Sacha Baron Cohen is rumored to have joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the role of Mephisto. If true, he will first appear in Ironheart. He will also reportedly appear in the upcoming WandaVision spinoff Agatha: Coven of Chaos. Marvel Studios and Cohen have not responded to the rumors at this time. | Source: Deadline
More News to Know
- Amazon Studios has ordered a new Alex Cross series with Aldis Hodge set to portray the titular character and produce. Titled Cross, the series is described as a “complex and twisted thriller,” based on the best-selling Alex Cross book series by James Patterson. (Deadline)
- Kelly Marcel will direct Venom 3. She previously wrote the screenplays for the first two Venom films and also wrote the screenplay for the upcoming Sony/Marvel threequel. (Deadline)
- Harry Lawtey (Industry) has joined the cast of Todd Phillips’ anticipated Joker sequel Joker: Folie à Deux. (Deadline)
- Georgina Campbell, Liam Neeson, and Joe Keery will star in the sci-fi actioner Cold Storage, based on the novel by David Koepp. Jonny Campbell will direct for Studiocanal. (Deadline)
- Aaron Taylor-Johnson has joined The Fall Guy, Universal’s big-screen take on the eponymous 1980s adventure television series. David Leitch will direct. (THR)
- Jeff Goldblum is in final talks to play the Wizard in Jon M. Chu’s upcoming Wicked movies. (Variety)
- William Jackson Harper has joined Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, though his role remains “a closely guarded secret.” (Variety)
- Danny Huston has boarded Kevin Costner’s Western epic Horizon, which is currently shooting in Utah. (Deadline)
- Travis Jeffery (Unbroken), Neil Sandilands (Sweet Tooth), Sara Wiseman (One Of Us Is Lying), Ras-Samuel Welda’abzgi (The Clearing), and Lydia Peckham (Cowboy Bebop) have signed on for roles in 20th Century’s Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. (Deadline)
- Jesse Williams (Grey’s Anatomy) has joined the cast of Hulu‘s Only Murders in the Building Season 3 in a recurring role. He will play a “documentarian with a particular interest in the case that Selena Gomez’s Mabel Mora, Steve Martin’s Charles Haden-Savage and Martin Short’s Oliver Putnam are working on.” (Deadline)
- Anna Popplewell (The Chronicles of Narnia franchise) and Katelyn Rose Downey (Clean Sweep) have joined The Nun 2. (Deadline)
- Woody Norman (C’mon C’mon) has signed on to star in the Russo Brothers’ next film The Electric State for Netflix. (Deadline)
- Rushi Kota (Never Have I Ever), America Ferrera (Superstore), Myha’la Herrold (Industry), Nick Offerman (Parks & Recreation), and Talia Ryder (Never Rarely Sometimes Always) have joined Sony and Black Bear’s GameStop film Dumb Money. (Deadline)
- Red One has added Nick Kroll, Kristofer Hivju, Wesley Kimmel, and Mary Elizabeth Ellis to its cast. (Deadline)
- Mary Holland (Senior Year) will star alongside Amy Adams and Scoot McNairy in Searchlight Pictures’ darkly comic horror Nightbitch, based on the debut novel of Rachel Yoder. Marielle Heller (Can You Ever Forgive Me?) is directing from her own script. (Deadline)
- Henry Cavill and Eiza González will lead the World War II action spy movie The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, which, inspired by real events, will chart UK PM Winston Churchill’s and James Bond scribe Ian Fleming’s secret WWII combat organization. Guy Ritchie will direct, with the project lining up a January start date in Turkey. (Deadline)
- Ray Romano has joined the cast of Project Artemis, the Apple Original Films production that centers on the ’60s space race. (Deadline)
That’s it for the last couple of weeks. What projects mentioned are you interested in seeing once completed? Tell us in the comments!