Real Heroes wear Masks
The Pandemic has been kind to streaming services. I’d go as far to say they have flourished where, under brighter conditions, they may have withered on the vine.
Well most of them have.
Quibi is dead.
Quibi had a unique format, each episode of its series was just 10 minutes long.
And that didn’t matter because it was a service aimed a smartphones for the time poor or attention deficit.
Incredibly it seems there were not enough of either, or at least not enough willing to pay.
To be honest I expected that some of the streaming services launching this year would go to the wall; there were a lot of them, and there is still room for a shake out. By early next year the important US market will change as the pandemic abates and people get back to work.
What happened to Quibi?
Chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg said their standalone business model was not viable. What does that mean?
I’m not sure. What happened is that they had a free subscriber offer which they tried to translate into paid subscriptions.
Well they are presently trying to wrap things up and sell off their properties.
Question is, who’s next? HBO Max? Apple Plus? Disney+?
Blumhouse is developing a robot thriller called M3GAN. It will be directed by Gerard Johnstone and written by Akela Cooper.
A roboticist at a toy company unexpectedly gets custody of her niece, she enlists her newest robot doll M3gan to help.
Allison Williams has been cast.
No schedule.
Charlie Kaufman used to be gold. I loved Being John Malkovich, but since then I have found little to catch my interest.
Well he’s still in action.
His latest project is to adapt the novel The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa.
This Japanese 1994 novel features an island where the Memory Police are in control, people are constantly forgetting small and random things, some do remember, these are removed by the Memory Police.
Director is Reed Morano
Amazon Studios is producing.
No Schedule.
Back in (Grunting 216) we speculated a Space Mountain Movie might be in the works. Well there is finally some confirmation. The writer is Joby Harold. Otherwise there are no details, no world of a director and of course.
No schedule.
Netflix has cancelled its Mark Millar series The Magic Order (Grunting – 242). It was one of the properties acquired when Netflix purchased Millerworld.
Netflix says Covid-19 plus the scale of the project were behind the shut-down decision.
Hme. As mentioned in an earlier post, it seems Netflix are not getting very much return on their Millerworld investment. And closing down production on a greenlit series is unusual for Netflix, if they generally hungry for content, this time they will have to go unfed.
Production continues on other Millerworld/Netflix projects.
What’s Ridley Doing?
No, wtf?
When we last asked in Grunt 302 he’d suspended work on The Last Duel, he was planning “Gucci” .
Well that was just not enough for him because he’s planning Kitbag; a vehicle for his collaborator Joaquin Phoenix.
Screenwriter is David Scarpa
Kitbag chronicles Napoleon Bonaparte’s rise to power.
Understandably there is no schedule; but without being disrespectful I suspect there is room for two features in Ridley Scott’s future, and he will have to loose either “Gucci” or “Kitbag”
Although it was announced in June we are just hearing about the feature adaptation of Brett Marty’s short film, Youth.
It is co-written by Marty, Josh Izenberg, and Amelia Whitcomb.
In the future you can reset your biological clock with a process called “Renewal’
at 70 Joel’s company pays for Joel and his wife to be “Renewed’. His wife comes back as a 20 year old, he rapidly ages. Oops.
Pierce Brosnan has been cast: hme there may have to be some CGI de-aging..
No schedule.
Also to be adapted from a short film is Time Agent;
Derek Kolstad is writing the script; an agent travels to past to save the future using tiny adjustments to events. Of course he must take care not in make accidental changes in the time-line but he manages to inadvertently stop a girl from committing suicide (I predict dangerous alterations in the time-space continuum and a romance).
The original Korean language short was written and directed by Jude Chun…
What? I’m not going to say it. All right then.
No Scarlett Johansen involved.
This is new; 6:45, a time loop horror movie directed by Craig Singer;
A man and his girlfriend arrive at an island getaway but find it deserted. they find it has a horrific history that repeats itself and loops at 6.45 every day.
They have to figure out how to break a cycle that ends with them being murdered at the end of each day.
It’s completed but there is no release date.
We are hearing about Dune Drifter from director Marc Price. He was famous for the Zombie movie Colin, completed for just £50 (not a typo).
This time he has turned his talent to space Science Fiction and it is looking OK. Keep in mind this is largely Model FX not CGI.
I’m impressed.
During an engagement with the enemy, Alder is shot down and crashes on an alien planet; she needs to fix her ship and get off the planet, a nearby ship also crashed may be her salvation… or her doom.
This feel familiar to us.
Sounds Like Distance (Grunting 288, now in production.)
The difference is this one is in the can and has been to festival.
There are a couple of reviews and they are positive; It’s violent, fast paced, the FX are fine, the action is good and it works.
They are not calling it a revelation.
On the other hand this film was made for pennies (well more than that but … you know) and it was finished under quarantine. It is an achievement and an example that you don’t need 200m and a render-farm to make a Science Fiction movie.
Dune Drifter is streaming as part of the FrightFest Halloween 2020 event, no word on a wider release.
Back in the day The Black List was the only place to look for promising unproduced films. Now there is The Red List , The Brit List, The Hit List and relevant to the discussing The Redlist.
The Redlist is where we go to find the most promising horror screenplays.
This year they have selected a lot of supernatural horror but there is one script that looks promising.
The Figure written by Michelle Hsu. I’ll just give you the summary from Hollywood Reporter: “In the male-dominated field of bio-tech, a female scientist aims to further her career by building a larger-than-life synthetic human being. Things do not go according to plan.”
Like the Black List it is a crapshoot as to whether any of the scripts ever get made.
We are hearing about a couple of movies via Movies and Mania.
First up is Embryo, a Chilean Science Fiction horror film directed by Patricio Valladares:
Kevin and his girlfriend Evelyn are camping in the woods when she is abducted and impregnated by otherworldly beings. As the entity inside her begins to grow at a rapid rate, Evelyn’s cravings can only be satiated by the taste of human flesh.
Next up is SCAVENGER from Directors Eric Fleitas and Luciana Garraza,
an Argentinean Science Fiction action feature film; In a post-apocalyptic world a female organ dealer seeks revenge on the cartel that murdered her family.
We’ve got word of a forthcoming Science Fiction movie project called Universe’s Most Wanted;
A small town gets a big surprise when a space ship carrying the universe’s most wanted criminals crash lands in their backyard.
Oh, Con-Air in space… what?
Brad Peyton (“Rampage,” “San Andreas”) will direct, F. Scott Frazier and Jimmy Loweree will write the script.
Dave Bautista has been cast.
It is due to go into production spring 2021.
We don’t have Chuck E. Cheese in the UK. but I’m guessing its animatronic band must have been the source of terror for many a young kid.
I’m saying that because those kids have grown up and have been working though their issues by making movies about their mechanical nemeses.
In 2019 was The Banana Splits reboot where the beloved goofy figures of my youth were reimagined as child butchering robots, coming up will be Five Nights at Freddies where a custodian is trapped with out of control animatronics. But coming up soon will be Wally’s Wonderland with Nicholas Cage.
Cage plays a janitor trapped in the amusement park with homicidal anthropomorphic animatronics.
Director is Kevin Lewis.
No word on release date.
The Strange Talent Of Luther Strode, ah, I know this one, I read two collections of this comic. Nutty thing, some guy writes off to an add that promises to teach him the secrets of a devastating fighting technique, what he learns leads him on a bloody odyssey of brutal relentless combat.
I recall it was fun.
Well they are making it into a movie. the comic is by Justin Jordan and Tradd Moore,
production company Allnighter. will adapt it as a film, Justin Jordan will write the screenplay
Alarmingly the production company wants to stay try to the comic, which will make it one of the most violent, blood- soaked action movies of recent years.
No word on director cast or schedule.
I’m Jack Eris and if you know me, you know Jack.
Get down to Film Combat Syndicate, you’ll be surprised.
http://filmcombatsyndicate.blogspot.co.uk/
And if you want some movie news about other than sequels and reboots try
And if you want to check out releases beyond the usual try First Showing.
http://www.firstshowing.net/category/Science Fiction /
You want to check out indie movies try Movies and Mania.
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