meta content='PcpJKOmoday5SZ2ES5Jk' name='bulletprofit'/> Ayyobpatel.bloggr.com: July 2021

Followers

Mark Wahlberg Reportedly Unhappy About Being Kept In The Dark On Infinite’s Release Plan

Antoine Fuqua’s sci-fi action blockbuster Infinite will endure in the history books as the first major original movie to stream exclusively on Paramount+, but that’s literally the only memorable thing about it. It wouldn’t be unfair to say it could also go down as 2021’s worst big budget effort after being widely panned by critics, where it holds a meager Rotten Tomatoes score of just 15%.

Nobody’s even mentioned Infinite at all since it arrived on June 10th, such was the rapid speed at which it dropped out of the cultural conversation. However, it could be set for a return to the headlines if a new report from Deadline’s senior reporter Justin Kroll is to be believed. Taking to social media, Kroll offered that leading man and producer Mark Wahlberg is said to be furious about the studio’s decision to release his latest star vehicle straight to streaming, as you can see below.

Infinite

Infinite was one of the countless studio projects affected by the Coronavirus pandemic, having originally been scheduled to hit theaters in August 2020, before being pushed back to May of this ear, and then eventually September. However, Paramount abruptly pulled it from the calendar altogether, and announced with less than five weeks notice it was now a Paramount+ exclusive.

Neither Wahlberg nor Fuqua were consulted about the decision, which stood to lose them both a substantial amount of money, even if the shockingly poor quality of Infinite may have seen it bomb at the box office anyway. Now that Scarlett Johansson is suing Disney for breach of contract, it can’t be ruled out that someone like Wahlberg, who regularly appears on lists naming Hollywood’s highest-paid actors, will follow suit.



from Movies – We Got This Covered https://ift.tt/3zWdXoc

Lucasfilm Reportedly Want The Russo Brothers To Direct A Star Wars Movie

One of the more interesting arguments to stem from Joe and Anthony Russo’s incredibly successful tenure as part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe also seems a touch unfair. Are the siblings great directors in their own right? Or are they just better than anyone else at nailing the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s formula for blockbuster escapism?

The Russos had only helmed low budget crime caper Welcome to Collinwood and frothy comedy You, Me and Dupree before boarding the MCU with Captain America: The Winter Soldier, their first effort behind the camera in eight years. Steve Rogers’ solo sequel, Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame are all arguably among the best outings in the franchise’s back catalogue, but recent Tom Holland drama Cherry received a tepid response at best.

The Russos are back in the big budget realm with Netflix’s The Gray Man, and we’re hearing from our sources – the same ones who told us Ahsoka Tano would appear in Season 2 of The Mandalorian months before Rosario Dawson’s casting was announced – that Lucasfilm are reportedly eying them to helm a Star Wars movie, although it’s not clear if it would be the one produced by Kevin Feige, the only of the three in development that doesn’t have a director.

Of course, every notable director in Hollywood has found themselves on a Star Wars shortlist at one point or another, and Zack Snyder’s mooted spinoff that was ultimately abandoned even resurfaced eight years later as an entirely different movie.

Looking at their track record when it comes to taking a beloved IP and crafting a crowd-pleasing slice of entertainment packed with standout action sequences, there are definitely more inspired choices out there, but few more qualified or capable.



from Movies – We Got This Covered https://ift.tt/3xaiAZS

Free Guy Sequel Reportedly In Early Development

Audiences have been waiting so long for Free Guy that it originally started life as a Fox production, and was one of the few in-development titles to be kept alive after Disney swallowed up even more of the competition. Filming kicked off in May 2019, which was after Ryan Reynolds had shot buddy sequel Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard, but that movie was released almost two months ago.

Shawn Levy’s video game-inspired blockbuster is finally coming to theaters on August 13th, where it’ll play exclusively for 45 days before being added to the Disney Plus library. That’s not a lot of time for a mega budget crowd-pleaser to maximize its earning potential, but we’re hearing from our sources – the same ones who told us Percy Jackson was being rebooted as a streaming service long before it was made official – that sequel talks are already happening behind the scenes.

20th Century Studios now exists as a Disney subsidiary, which provides the Mouse House with greater leeway to continue churning out franchise fare that doesn’t fall directly under their banner, and a high concept action comedy starring Ryan Reynolds that lends itself to all sorts of celebrity cameos and expansive world-building comes with plenty of potential for further adventures.

At the end of the day, though, it’s all about the profit margins, and we’ve been in this position before where sequels get announced and end up never happening. However, if Free Guy lives up to the early reactions that paint it as the summer’s biggest surprise, then audiences could respond in kind by propelling it to the sort of commercial heights that make more installments a prospect too hard to ignore for the studio.



from Movies – We Got This Covered https://ift.tt/2TQIjsQ

Dwayne Johnson Reportedly Wants A Jungle Cruise Trilogy

Given his status and standing in the industry, Dwayne Johnson tends to get whatever he wants. One thing that’s become a recurring feature of his career, though, is for sequels to his box office hits being announced before eventually fading into nothingness.

Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, G.I. Joe: Retaliation, San Andreas, Baywatch and Rampage all had further installments either confirmed or teased, but it doesn’t look like any of them will be happening. Even Hobbs & Shaw 2 remains up for debate, when producer Kelly McCormick said it was a while away, and Johnson recently appeared to close the door on his continued involvement with the Fast & Furious franchise, even if spinoff sequels remain a firm possibility.

We’re now hearing from our sources – the same ones who told us Ben Affleck was returning as Batman in The Flash long before it was confirmed – that The Rock is hoping for Disney’s Jungle Cruise to act as the beginning of a blockbuster adventure trilogy, which would be fitting considering those Indiana Jones influences.

Jungle Cruise

Johnson revealed a couple of weeks back that he’s already spoken to the Mouse House about a possible sequel, which additionally noted that co-star Emily Blunt had been officially drafted into his inner circle of regular collaborators that includes folks like Kevin Hart, Ryan Reynolds, producer Beau Flynn, writer Chris Morgan, filmmakers Brad Peyton and Rawson Marshall Thurber to name just a few, so he’s clearly keen to make more movies with the actress.

They’re both attached to Netflix’s comic book adaptation Ball & Chain, but should Jungle Cruise turn a decent profit at both the box office and on Disney Plus Premier Access, then the studio would be keen to move forward on a second escapade for Frank Wolff and Lily Houghton.



from Movies – We Got This Covered https://ift.tt/3xcZ1A5

Black Adam Producer Teases Potential Superman Showdown

While it hasn’t reached the same levels of Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield’s presumed involvement in the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Spider-Man: No Way Home quite yet, by this time next year the chatter of Henry Cavill’s Superman showing up for a cameo appearance in the DCEU’s Black Adam may well have reached similar heights in terms of hype, anticipation and expectation.

We’ve heard on at least a dozen separate occasions that Cavill’s canonical Kal-El is posed to fly into the orbit of Dwayne Johnson’s antihero, and while it’s never come any closer to being made official, if you hear the same thing often enough then there might well be at least the tiniest element of truth to it.

Johnson and Cavill are familiar with each other, and The Witcher star’s manager Dany Garcia is producing both Black Adam and Shazam! Fury of the Gods, the latter of which has also been heavily touted as a potential destination for Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel to make a triumphant return to the fold at long last.

In a new interview, another of Black Adam‘s producorial team teased the relentless Superman scuttlebutt, after Hiram Garcia admitted he knows full well just how much the fans would love to see it happen.

“Hard to say, but I know that would be incredible if it ever did happen. We certainly know the fans want it! All I can say is that we’re always listening to the fans and doing what we can!”

Cavill has had at least one movie remaining on his contract with Warner Bros. ever since Joss Whedon’s Justice League reshoots wrapped four years ago, and in the interim he’s been linked to every possible project under the sun. Black Adam has always felt like the safest and smartest bet, though, but the infuriating thing is that we probably won’t find out until it hits theaters on July 29th, 2022.



from Movies – We Got This Covered https://ift.tt/3jagdBg

Paramount Reportedly Still Wants Star Trek 4 To Feature Chris Pine And Chris Hemsworth

The fourth installment in the Star Trek Kelvin timeline was initially announced with S.J. Clarkson set to direct, and the story would see Chris Pine’s Captain Kirk reunite with his father George, as played by Chris Hemsworth in the prologue of J.J. Abrams’ opener via the same temporal shenanigans that allowed Leonard Nimoy to appear as Spock Prime in the first two chapters.

However, both of the Chrises eventually ended dropping out, although Pine was eventually convinced to return, only for Star Trek 4 to fall into developmental purgatory. WandaVision director Matt Shakman was recently hired to helm an untitled blockbuster that was being fast-tracked into production and had already been dated for a June 2023 release, and while it hasn’t been confirmed yet, the talk is that negotiations to reunite Abrams’ Enterprise crew are a priority.

We’re now hearing from our sources – the same ones who told us Discovery‘s Captain Pike was getting his own spinoff long before Strange New Worlds was announced – that Paramount are determined for Shakman’s Star Trek to bring the project full circle and have both Pine and Hemsworth on board to revisit the original concept of them teaming up for an intergalactic adventure.

Of course, this is entirely dependent on whether the stars agree to sign on the dotted line, and we haven’t heard a peep out of Star Trek 4 since Shakman was first confirmed for the director’s chair earlier this month. The fact a script is already in place written by Lindsey Beer and Geneva Robertson-Dworet would seem to indicate both the filmmaker and the studio know where the narrative is headed, though, and reuniting two of Hollywood’s pre-eminent Chrises would be one way to guarantee strong box office numbers given their respective levels of star power and popularity.



from Movies – We Got This Covered https://ift.tt/3yh0gjb