One of the most interesting new shows landing on television this fall is Fox's Gotham, which charts the rise of Jim Gordon (Ben McKenzie) from new cop on the block to the troubled city's police commissioner long before the Dark Knight ever arrived on the scene. Though a Batman-related show without the pointy-eared crimefighter may sound like a tough sell on paper, trailers for the series have done a great job of selling it as a gritty police drama filled with easter eggs for comic-book aficionados.
As far as sequels go, one film that most people wouldn't consider to be begging for one would have to be The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, which employed a slew of classy, established thesps to tell a genial, feel-good story about retirees finding a new lease on life. However, Fox Searchlight is certainly not blind - that 2012 flick grossed $130 million worldwide on a budget of around $10 million - so now audiences are getting a follow-up, officially titled The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.
Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy was, by all measurements available, a resounding success for the studio, drawing rave reviews and yielding an absolutely massive box office haul. Add in that the space-set caper was considered to be Marvel's riskiest venture yet, and it's easy to understand why Guardians of the Galaxy 2 has already been greenlit.
Still riding high on the critical and commercial success of The Butler (officially Lee Daniels' The Butler, in case you, for some reason, equate that title with a now-lost 1916 silent short film with the same name, as Warner Bros. bizarrely seems to think you would), Lee Daniels has locked down his next directorial gig. The Precious helmer will tackle The Brian Banks Story, which was previously the subject of a 2012 60 Minutes piece.
There's a lot of rampant speculation going around the web today following Warner Bros.' announcement of nine new DC films to follow Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice in addition to two of what the studio has simply called 'WB Event Films.' And while we may not know for a while what those two latter dates are actually for, one popular theory that has been making the rounds is that the dates are for sequels to 2016's Harry Potter spinoff Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.
Hot on the heels of its mega-announcement that nine DC blockbusters will follow Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice and be in theaters by 2020, Warner Bros. has further filled out its schedule by slotting two additional animated films, ones insiders say are part of the Lego franchise. Though it must be stressed that only the dates - May 25, 2018, and May 24, 2019 - have been announced, The Lego Movie is the only lucrative, animated franchise that the studio currently has.
Fanboys rejoice - the clash of the box office titans that saw Warner Bros.' Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice going mano-a-mano with Marvel's Captain America 3 has been averted. In the end, as we all knew it would (did you see the numbers for Guardians of the Galaxy this week? And that flick was considered a risk for Marvel, as opposed to something like a third Cap outing), Warner Bros. blinked first, opting to move the highly anticipated next chapter of its DC Cinematic Universe up from May 6th, 2016 to March 25th, 2016.
Screen Gems' action comedy The Black Phantom just took a giant step forward with word that A-lister Samuel L. Jackson is in talks to join Kevin Hart in the film, playing the title role. Jackson replaced Jamie Foxx in the role after the Django Unchained star was forced to depart due to scheduling conflicts.
Disney is close to adding another talented thesp to its upcoming Coast Guard rescue drama The Finest Hours. Deadline reports that Casey Affleck, an Oscar nominee for his role in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, is in talks to take on a part in the film alongside Chris Pine.
Gruesomely satisfying horror-thriller You're Next put director Adam Wingard and writer Simon Barrett on our watchlist, though the work that the pair did on V/H/S and A Horrible Way to Die really should have brought them to our attention earlier. Nevertheless, the duo delivered a fantastic entry on the home invasion subgenre with You're Next, and now they're set to return with The Guest, which delves more into the thriller genre while still supplying the style that we've come to expect from the pair.
