Motion Picture: Donald Glover To Produce And Star In Hypno-Hustler Spider-Man Spinoff and Data Shows A Decrease In LGBTQ Characters Of Color
John Cho - Matt Winkelmeyer
Action/Fantasy/Sci-Fi Donald Glover is returning to the Spiderverse. Now, he’ll be starring and producing a film about the Hypno-Hustler, one of Spider-Man’s lesser-known villains from Marvel’s 1978 comics. The Hypno-Hustler’s abilities include hypnotizing people by playing his guitar. The film will be a part of Sony Pictures’ collaboration with Marvel for the Spider-Man universe. Information about the film’s plot, release date, and title are being kept under wraps. It is unclear what role Glover will play.
Star Trek’s John Cho and The World to Come’s Katherine Waterston have joined the cast of Blumhouse’s and Sony Pictures’ horror film They Listen. American Pie’s Chris Weitz will direct the feature, which has started shooting in Los Angeles. Although the rest of the cast and plot information are unknown at this time, They Listen is expected to be released in theatres on August 25th, 2023.
Minari’s Lee Isaac Chung is in talks to direct Twisters, a sequel to Warner Bros.’, Universal Pictures’, and Amblin Entertainment’s disaster film Twister. The production team already includes The Revenant’s Mark L. Smith, who has written the screenplay, and Jurassic World Dominion’s Frank Marshall, who will produce. Although the plot for the sequel is not yet known, the original film follows an estranged couple that chased storms as they reunite to hunt down the “storm of the century in Oklahoma.” Twisters’s release date is not yet known.
Netflix has announced a live-action adaptation of Tsukasa Hojo’s City Hunter, a popular 1980s Japanese manga. Set to star in the film is Segodon’s Ryohei Suzuki as the protagonist Ryo Saeba. The film will follow Ryo after the death of his partner, Makimura, as he and Makimura’s sister team up to find answers. Yuichi Sato will direct, while Tatsuro Mishima will write the screenplay. Netflix has commented that its adaptation of City Hunter will be “a modern-day updated version of the manga, set in the bustling streets of Shinjuku,” with Suzuki remarking that it will “aim to strike the right balance between realism and fantasy, as well as tones from the ‘80s and today.” The film is set to be released in 2024.
Robin Thede - Jon Kopaloff / Stringer
Comedy Killing It, Amazon Studios’ upcoming zombie horror-comedy film, has added Adventures Of A Boy Genius’ Bridget Stokes and Bad Hair’s Robin Thede to the team. Stokes and Thede will reunite after working together on A Black Lady Sketch Show, with Stokes directing and Thede writing the script for the upcoming film. Killing It follows a quad of best friends as they attend the SpelHouse homecoming in an attempt to reinvent their college reputations. However, a zombie apocalypse breaks out, forcing the best friends to do everything they can to survive. Thede will produce for her company For Better or Words and will work with John Hodges, Brooke Posch, and Tony Hernandez from Jax Media. Killing It’s release date and cast have not been announced.
Drama Wednesday’s Jenna Ortega has found her co-star for her upcoming MPCA film Winter Spring Summer or Fall. Criminal Minds’s Adam Rodriguez has been cast as Ortega’s father in Tiffany Paulson’s romantic drama and feature debut. Described as a mix of Before Sunrise and The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Winter Spring Summer or Fall follows teens, played by Ortega and Hynes White, as they fall in love over the course of four days of the year. Producers include Ortega, Brad Krevoy, Josh Shader, and David Wulf, while distribution is in the hands of Paramount Global Content Distribution. The film’s release date is currently unknown.
The trailer for Zach Braff’s A Good Person, starring Morgan Freeman and Florence Pugh, has been released by MGM. The film follows Pugh’s character Allison as she attempts to navigate life following her survival of a fatal accident. While battling an opioid addiction and pent-up grief, Allison’s would-be-father-in-law, played by Freeman, acts as a friend and source of light. The trailer depicts Pugh and Freeman’s comedic yet profound relationship. The supporting cast includes Toby Onwumere, Celeste O’Connor, Jackie Hoffman, Zoe Lister-Jones, Alex Wolff, and Molly Shannon. A Good Person will be released in theatres on March 24th, 2023.
Transplant’s Ayisha Issa, as well as Chris Jericho, Steven Ogg, Sara Canning, Michael Eklund, and Jonathan Cherry have been announced as the cast of Dept. 9’s Dark Match. Written and directed by Lowell Dean, the horror-drama will follow a wrestling company as they accept a gig, only to realize that the backwoods town they travel to is run by a cult leader with dark plans. Filming recently wrapped in Edmonton, Canada, although its release date has not been announced.
PBS
Documentary PBS’s documentary anthology series Independent Lens has announced their upcoming winter features. Films releasing in January 2023 include Children of Las Brisas on January 2nd, a documentary directed by Marianela Maldonado that follows three children from Las Brisas, Venezuela as they follow their dreams to become musicians; The Big Payback by Erika Alexander and Whitney Dow on January 16th, which features the debate in the U.S. about reparations for slavery; No Stright Lines on January 23rd, which tells the story of queer comic book artists seeking acceptance; and Phil Bertelsen’s The Picture Taker on January 30th, which tells the story of Ernest Withers, a civil rights photographer and FBI informant. In February and March 2023, viewers can look forward to Outta the Much, Love in the Time of Fentanyl, Storming Caesars Palace, and Hidden Letters. Lois Vossen, a PBS executive producer, states that these films all “[show] us how people come together to make change in their societies and how even one person can change the course of history.” Of the eight films announced, six are from filmmakers of color, and all but one highlight people of color.
Temi Ojo - Fred Hayes / Stringer
Industry Updates The recipients of the SFFILM and Sloan Science in Cinema Filmmaker Fellowships have been announced. Temi Ojo, a microchip-engineer and filmmaker will receive a $35,000 grant for his screenplay A Man With a Missing Face. It is inspired by Robert Chelsea, the oldest person and first Black man to receive a face transplant, and follows a similar story. The other recipient, Mark Inger, was selected for the script of Terroir, which follows a woman in the process of getting her PhD in biochemistry as she returns to and tries to save her family’s failing wine vineyard. Both will receive cash grants, given two months to work at FilmHouse, and paired with artistic and scientific mentors to help with their films.
Racial Identity of LGBTQ Characters in GLAAD's 2021 Film Report
GLAAD’s 2021 report has revealed that the racial diversity of LGBTQ characters has declined. The report, which analyzes “the quantity, quality and diversity” of queer characters in films, uses data from Box Office Mojo and follows seven studios: Lionsgate, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, United Artists Releasing, Universal Pictures, Walt Disney Studios, and Warner Bros. Racial diversity of LGBTQ characters dropped one percent from 2020 to 2021, with 39 percent of LGBTQ characters being people of color. In 2021, 28 characters identified as LGBTQ, with 17 being white, five being Black, two being Latino, two being Asian and Pacific Islander, one being multiracial, and one being Middle Eastern. Compare this to 2017, where a record-breaking 57 percent of LGBTQ characters were people of color.
AMC has acquired a 13-screen theater in North Station in Boston, Massachusetts. The building, formerly known as the ArcLight theater, is located “at The Hub on Causeway,” which is a “large-scale mixed-use development.” This theatre, which is relatively new and originally opened in December 2019 and closed in March 2020 due to Covid-19, is one of many theaters AMC has bought as a result of pandemic closures. This purchase comes after AMC announced that its liquidity as of the end of December 2022 is predicted to be between $725 million and $825 million.
