Episode 157 - Green Lantern, James Bond, and Moon Knight

After a brief hiatus, the ToB Crew returns to cover the latest in film and television news. Of course the film part seems to be less and less relevant these days as streaming services have become the defacto home for all things motion picture. Unfortunately, that means much of the film news is sad and depressing. Like the passing of Sean Connery, or the impending death of movie theatres. But it also means more news from the land of Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max, and the like. Such as, additional details about the Green Lantern series coming to HBO Max, Oscar Isaac's casting as Moon Night for Disney+, and that Netflix is, once ,again, raising it's subscription prices. The guys also dive into an interesting 'Agree or Disagree' segment revolving around the state of Warner Brothers. Plus a brief discussion on the first season of HBO's Lovecraft Country. All that, and so much more, on this week's Tower of Babble Podcast!

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Show Notes

Movies

• Sean Connery, the original James Bond, has died, at the age of 90.

• The ‘Uncharted’ movie wraps filming. Glimpse at Mark Wahlberg as Sully, and Tom Holland in full costume as Nathan Drake.

• Jonathan Majors (Lovecraft Country) has been cast as Kang the Conqueror in ‘Ant-Man 3’.

• Christian Bale arrives in Australia to start filming on ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’, where he’ll be playing the villain.

• ‘Animorphs’ creators exit movie adaptation over creative differences. Which really begs the question, who even knew there was an ‘Animorphs’ movie in development.

• Quibi is officially shutting down. Its final days saw the service have only 72,000 paid subscribers, and had spent almost $1.75 billion in funding.

• COVID

  • The trailer for the pandemic thriller ‘Song Bird’. Set in a dystopian reality where COVID has mutated and we’re in year 4 of lockdown.

  • Production on Alicia Vikander’s ‘Tomb Raider 2’ has been delayed indefinitely due to COVID.

  • ‘Sherlock Holmes 3’ with Robert Downey Jr is also on the “back burner” according to Director Dexter Fletcher.

• Michael B Jordan will direct ‘Creed 3’ as his directorial debut.

• Speaking of Michael B Jordan, he is producing a live action Static Shock movie

• Simon Kinberg is set to write and produce a live-action ‘Battlestar Galactica’ movie for Universal.

• Daniel Kaluuya is making a live action Barney movie and says that “Barney taught us ‘I love you, you love me. Won’t you say you love me too?’. That’s one of the first songs I remember, and what happens when that isn’t true?”... Insane.

• The ‘Fast and Furious’ series will conclude with F10 and F11. Justin Lin will return to direct both.

• George Miller is officially returning to direct the Mad Max prequel ‘Furiosa’.

• Lego Star Wars Christmas Special on Nov 17th.

• ‘James Bond: No Time to Die’ is being shopped to streaming services. MGM has been in talks with Apple TV+ and Netflix, and presumably others, for as much as $600 million.

• Meanwhile, MGM is also looking for their next Bond. The role “will have to be reimagined”, but doesn’t need to be “a white man”. They said however, that it won’t be a woman, saying “we should create new roles for women”.

• Snyder Cut:

  • Geoff Johns and Jon Berg will not receive production credits.

  • Returning actors:

    • Joe Manganiello as Deathstroke

    • Amber Heard as Mira

    • Ben Affleck as Batman

    • Ray Fisher as Cyborg

    • Jared Leto as The Joker

Agree or Disagree

Drew McWeeny, a well respected writer and critic in Hollywood, in his weekly newsletter, touched on the state of Warner Bros. Calling it an “IP management company” . You can read the piece here: https://drewmcweeny.substack.com/p/could-james-bond-really-die-at-home. We discuss whether we agree with him or not.

TV

• HBO Max is creating a ’Green Lantern’ series. Guy Gardner, Jessica Cruz, Simon Baz, Alan Scott will be lead characters and it is being produced in part by Greg Berlanti. Seth Graham-Smith will be showrunner and co-write with Marc Guggenheim. It will be a 10 episode first season, with a total budget of $100 million.

• Oscar Isaac will be taking up his third roll in the Marvel universe, as Moon Knight for the Disney+ series. Having previously played Apocalypse in ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’ and Spider-Man 2099 in ‘Into the Spider-Verse’.

• Netflix has increased its prices… again. Standard price is now $14 a month and Premium is now $18 a month. They have also removed their 30 day free trial period.

• Disney says it’s primary focus is on streaming now.

• Amazon is arguing that you don’t actually own purchases from Amazon Prime Video.

• A live action ‘Assassin's Creed’ series is in development at Netflix.

• ‘Ted Lasso’ has been renewed for S3 ahead of S2 production start.

• ‘Archer’ renewed for S12.

• ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ renewed for S4.

• New episodes of ‘Euphoria’ are coming in December.

• There’s a sequel series to ‘Saved by the Bell’ coming to Peacock. It features the return of Zach and Kelly along with a new cast of teens.

• David Fincher confirms that ‘Mindhunter’ is being put on hold for now.

• Hulu is bringing back ‘Animaniacs’ and the first trailer has dropped.

• ‘Willow’ series is coming to Disney+ with Ron Howard and Warwick Davis returning.

What We’ve Been Watching

• The Mandalorian S2

• Lovecraft Country S1