J.J. Abrams talks about his own fears about The Force Awakens. Russell T. Davies explains why he won't return to the Whoniverse. And get a look at the cast of the next James Bond film, on set. Spoilers now!
Top image: Doctor Who
Kong: Skull Island
Michael Keaton is finalizing details to join the cast of Kong: Skull Island, which already includes Tom Hiddleston and J.K. Simmons. [Deadline]
Avengers: Age of Ultron
New footage was shown at the Consumers Electronic Show in Las Vegas in a featurette which focused pretty heavily on Ultron. While most of what was shown was stuff from the trailers, there were a few new scenes:
[A[ shot of what appears to be Ultron bots bursting through the walls of the train in the slow-mo Quicksilver sequence. In another new shot during the villa sequence, Iron Man flies at the camera, leaving tumbling Ultron bots in his wake. A third sequence showed the destruction of a Samsung-owned building.
The featurette also showed us more extended looks at the Ultron concept art, especially in its broken state, and the piece really brought home the notion that the villain gets more advanced as the movie goes on.
[ IGN]
Star Wars
Here's an interview with J.J. Abrams on the red carpet of the National Board of Review, with him talking about being excited and terrified by the film coming out: "It is, without question, an intense and terrifying prospect... The opportunity, I think, is greater than the fear, greater than the risk." [ MTV]
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Ant-Man
Collider points out that the official credits released with this week's trailer list Adam McKay and Paul Rudd as the writers, with Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish receiving the "story by" credit. That means that McKay and Rudd's rewrite changed the original script substantially. [Collider]
Christophe Beck will score the movie. [ Film Music Reporter]
Downsizing
Reese Witherspoon will co-star in Alexander Payne's next film, which also stars Matt Damon as a man who realizes his life would be better if he could shrink himself. [Deadline]
Fantastic Four
Marco Beltrami will score the Fantastic Four movie. [Film Music Reporter]
Sam & Liz: A Killer Love Story
Relativity has bought this science fiction script by Matt Altman ( Feed the Devil). Here's the logline:
Sam is an average guy working a 9 to 5 job that he hates, wishing for a more exciting life. When he meets gorgeous thrill-seeker Liz, he gets more more than he bargained for. Together they go on a wild ride discovering that nothing they know about themselves is true and their connection to each other has surprising and deadly consequences.
[ Deadline]
The Neon Demon
Elle Fanning is in negotiations to star in Nicolas Winding Refn's next film, The Neon Demon. Fanning's character would be "aspiring model who is caught in a world of beauty and demise." [The Wrap]
Spectre
New photos from the set show the cast in Sölden, Austria. The location is a tourist attraction known for its skiing, and the Sölden area's official site has the production filming until February, utilizing a cable car and the glacier road and tunnel. See the rest of the photos here. [Coming Soon]
Doctor Who
Russell T. Davies has said he's definitely not going to be involved with Doctor Who for the foreseeable future. In particular, he's refused to do something for the upcoming ten year anniversary of the rebooted show:
Someone from the [BBC's] branding team sent me a very lovely email saying do you want to do something.
I don't know what they imagined: a talk or a convention perhaps. I just said no, to be honest. A programme can't have its fiftieth and then it's tenth. I think that's just confusing. It's marvellous and glorious; let it carry on.
As for coming back as a writer, Davies said that he's turned down a couple of invitations:
Wouldn't that be nice? The lovely Steven [Moffat] invites me every year to come and write one. And I love him and I love them and I love watching it, but here I am, moving on. I love Doctor Who with all my heart but nothing is more important to me than my own stuff... I made 60 episodes and did 40 Torchwoods and 40 Sarah Janes and there are an awful lot of ways to destroy the world in there.
Paul Kaye (Thoros of Myr, Game of Thrones) will play Prentis in an early episode of season nine. Speculation guesses that he'll be in the premiere, as the character name could very well reference the episode's title, "The Magician's Apprentice." [Den of Geek]
Agent Carter
Hayley Atwell teases once again that there's more going on to the show than it appears:
It's really clever the way the writers stayed on top of everything. Just when the audience goes, 'Alright, I know what the show is,' it goes into a different direction.
Atwell also said that she'd play Peggy Carter in whatever time and place she was asked:
Because it's the Marvel Universe, it can go anywhere. We can time jump and we can do things more conventional genres can't. If audiences keep liking Peggy, hopefully she will pop up in different worlds. I would certainly jump at the chance because I love playing her.
Star Wars Rebels
Vanessa Marshall (Hera) talked about the relationship between her character and the Jedi Kanan:
So not space married … these people have no clue if anything they're doing is going to make a difference. Where revolution starts, someone has a great idea, and then the real people take action and live by those principles. It's not just an intellectual revolt. They're actually taking lives, getting food, getting fuel, and can die on a daily basis for that cause. When you put romance into that, I don't even think they have time to consider such luxury items as that. I really feel like it's such a time fraught with so much tension.
... I swear I'm not evading the question. I just don't think it applies. If it does and we discover that together, then you and I will both learn simultaneously that's what's going on. Of course, Kanan is a Jedi. I think most of us defer to his Force sensibilities. It helps her to have people think he is running the show, because if the Empire catches them he can't ruin the mission, because he doesn't know anything. But if they know I'm in charge and if I get captured then I'm done for, and there goes our whole Rebel cell.
She also said she couldn't reveal anything about what was next, but did say:
The season finale took my breath away. Just reading it on the page I hyperventilated. It's just, bam! It's a home run. Bam! It's so good. I cannot wait to see how they animate it. I haven't seen it animated. It's so good. It will not disappoint.
Shannara
Ivana Baquero (Pan's Labyrinth) has been cast as Eretria, described as "a human who has been raised in a den of thieves known as the Rovers. When she rescues Wil from danger she becomes unwittingly tied to he and Amberle's quest to save the Four Lands." [Entertainment Weekly]
The Strain
Max Charles (American Sniper) will play Dr. Ephraim Goodweather's son in the second season, in a recasting. [Deadline]
Daredevil
Here's the motion poster for the upcoming Netflix show:
And here's the static poster:
Below is a new still, showing Daredevil fighting Piotr (Paul Mann). [USA Today]
The Walking Dead
Here's a new promo image for the rest of the season, which shows the group on the run again. And with some sort of map. [Entertainment Weekly]
The Flash
Shots from the set seemed to indicate that the show had cast Liam McIntyre as Mark Mardon, the new Weather Wizard and the brother of Clyde Mardon, from the pilot. Now Comic Book.com has confirmed that casting. [Comic Book.com]
Below is a new promo for the show's return:
Go here for more key art from the series. [SpoilerTV]
The Originals
Go here for more photos from episode 2.10, "Gonna Set Your Flag on Fire." [SpoilerTV]
Forever
Go here for promo photos from episode 1.13, "Diamonds Are Forever." [SpoilerTV]
Grimm
Here's a short description of episode 4.11:
Episode 4.11 - Death Do Us
Nick and Hank investigate a homicide at an abandoned — and supposedly haunted — residence.
See photos from the episode here. [SpoilerTV]
Additional reporting by Charlie Jane Anders and Abhimanyu Das