Motion Picture: Winston Duke Cast In 'The Fall Guy' and Josephine Baker Biopic In The Works
Winston Duke - Emmanuel Obianke
Action/Fantasy/Sci-Fi: A reboot of the cult-classic film The Crow has received financing from Ashland Hill Media Finance, and has cast Bill Skarsgård (It), FKA Twigs (singer-songwriter), and Danny Huston (Yellowstone). The film is currently in post-production. The reboot, as well as the original film, was based on James O’Barr’s graphic novel that follows the story of an undead man who vows to avenge his and his fiancé’s deaths. It is unclear what roles Skarsgård, FKA Twigs, and Huston will play.
Winston Duke (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever) has been cast in Universal’s The Fall Guy, a film based on the 1980s television series following “the adventures of a film stuntman who moonlights as a bounty hunter when movie work is slow.” However, the film deviates from the original source material and instead depicts a washed-up stuntman who returns to a film set to work with the actor he doubled for—the catch, though, is that the actor has gone missing. Ryan Gosling will play the stuntman, while Duke is set to play his best friend. Other cast members include Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Bullet Train), the missing actor, Stephanie Hsu (Everything Everywhere All At Once), his assistant, and Emily Blunt (A Quiet Place), a prosthetic makeup artist. Producers include Kelly McCormick, David Leitch, and Gosling. The film began production in the first week of November 2022, but it is unclear when it will hit theatres.
Meera Menon has been hired as the director for Universal’s upcoming fantasy film A Deadly Education. The film takes inspiration from Naomi Novik’s 2020 book of the same name, which is the first in The Scholomance trilogy. The film will focus on the protagonist, El Higgens, a girl with special powers as she enrolls in a school for the magically gifted. However, students only have two options—you either graduate, or you die. Producers include Todd Lieberman and David Hoberman, with screenwriters Emily Carmichael and Shantha Susman. The cast and release date have not yet been announced.
A spinoff to A Quiet Place (2018), A Quiet Place: Day One, has cast Lupita Nyong’o as Paramount’s new lead. Although it is currently unclear what character she will play as this film is being kept under wraps, we do know that Michael Sarnoski will direct the film, which was created from an original idea from John Krasinski, who directed the previous two installments, A Quiet Place and A Quiet Place: Part 2. Krasinski, along with Michael Bay, Andrew Form, and Brad Fuller will produce through Platinum Dunes. The film is set for its theatrical debut on March 8, 2024, and a second spinoff is scheduled for release in 2025, but it is unclear whether or not Nyong’o will star in both.
Sung Kang - Steve Jennings
Comedy: Fast and the Furious actor Sung Kang will make his directorial debut with the low-budget horror-comedy film Shaky Shivers. Kang’s film will be set in the ‘90s— “I didn’t want to do something really heavy. I think a lot of people expected, because of my association with these big blockbuster action movies, that I would do some action film,” Kang comments. The film is an ode to the ‘80s films that Kang grew up admiring and will tell the story of two women, played by Brooke Markham (In the Dark) and VyVy Nguyen (Young Sheldon), who work at an ice cream parlor and become stranded at an abandoned camp, where they encounter a book of spells that introduces them to “classic movie creatures.” Due to COVID-19, the film’s production was put on pause shortly after it received funding in 2020, but the cast and crew regrouped a few months later and began work on the project. Shaky Shivers will be presented in Santa Monica at The American Film Market (AFM) in early November.
Focus Features and Working Title have announced that Polite Society, Nida Manzoor’s action-comedy, will be released in the U.K. on April 7, 2023, followed by its North American premiere on April 28. While she created the series We Are Lady Parts, Polite Society will be Manzoor’s feature directorial debut. It tells the story of Ria Khan, who is training to be a martial artist, as she tries to rescue her sister Lena from her upcoming nuptials. This story of sisterly love features “the most ambitious of all wedding heists in the name of independence and sisterhood.” Priya Kansara, Ritu Arya, Nimra Bucha, Shobu Kapoor, Seraphina Beh, Ella Bruccoleri, Jeff Mirza, Shona Babayemi, and Akshay Khanna have all been cast in the film.
Riele Down (Henry Danger) and Auli’i Cravalho (Moana) will hit Hulu and Disney+ screens on December 2nd in 20th Century Studios’ Darby and the Dead. The film donned a “supernatural teen comedy,” will follow Darby Harper, played by Downs, in the aftermath of suffering a near-death experience as a young girl. Due to this, she gains the power of seeing dead people, causing her to become introverted and isolated from her high school peers. When the most popular girl in school, Capri (Cravalho) dies in a freak accident before her seventeenth birthday party, she enlists the help of Darby to throw the party as planned, resulting in the complete reinvention of herself. Directed by Silas Howard and written by Becca Greene, the film will also feature Asher Angel, Chosen Jacobs, Wayne Knight, Derek Luke, and Tony Danza, with producers Adam Saunders, Eddie Rubin, Michele Weisler, and Mac Hendrickson.
Nikohl Boosheri - Jesse Grant / Stringer
Drama: Bill Guttentag’s Afghan Dreamers, which tells the story of an Afghan all-female robotics team’s journey as they battle a patriarchal society and participate in worldwide competitions, has cast Nikohl Boosheri (The Bold Type) and Ali Fazal (Victoria & Abdul) as leads. The film is based on tech entrepreneur Roya Mahboob’s efforts in 2017 to help young women in Afghanistan further their passion in STEM, where they would go on to travel worldwide for competitions, meet politicians, and receive global recognition. Boosheri will play Mahboob, who comments that he is “excit[ed] to be part of a film that portrays Afghanistan and Afghan women and girls in a positive light…It’s important to show what Afghan women can do if you give them the opportunity.”
Michelle Hurd (Star Trek: Picard), Sean Patrick Thomas (Till), Siddiq Saunderson (Wu-Tang: An American Saga), and June Carryl (Dead Women Walking) have joined the cast of MPI Original Films and BET’s feature Kemba. Nesta Cooper (Bliss) has previously been cast as the lead, Kemba Smith, a criminal justice reform advocate that was sentenced to nearly 25 years in federal prison for a first-time drug offense. Kemba’s sentence was later commuted by President Clinton after she served 6.5 years in prison in December 2000, after which she founded The Kemba Smith Foundation and wrote Poster Child: The Kemba Smith Story. The film will follow her story as a young college student that fell in love with a drug kingpin who “leads her down a path of abuse and manipulation, placing her in the middle of the government’s ‘war on drugs.’” Odessa and Gus, Kemba’s parents, will be played by Hurd and Thomas; Saunderson will play Kemba’s boyfriend; lastly, Elaina, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund Lawyer representing Kemba, will be played by Carryl. The film will be directed by Kelley Kali. Producers include MPI’s Stacey Parks, Nick Reid, Lana Link, and Rob Pfaltzgraff, along with BET’s Maureen Guthman and Connie Orlando. The film is set to release on the small screen on BET; however, additional distribution plans will be announced later.
A biopic feature film about Josephine Baker, an American-born singer and dancer that spent most of her life in Paris, and is considered the first Black superstar, has been announced by Studiocanal. The film, which is being produced with support from Baker’s sons, will be written and directed by Maïmouna Doucouré. It is assumed to be following Baker’s fame in the cabaret halls of Paris in the 1920s and 1930s, her support for the French in World War II, and her civil rights activism in the United States in the 1950s. The cast has not been announced, but production will begin in 2023.
Mandalay Sports Media, along with Bluestone, have announced a film with the working title 715!, which will detail the story of Henry Aaron, the Atlanta Braves slugger who attempted to break Babe Ruth’s 714 home run record. Because of this, Aaron received hate mail and death threats and had to be protected 24/7 by the Atlanta police department. Geoffrey Fletcher is set to write the film, while Mike Tolin and Richard Saperstein will produce. The film’s release date is set for April 8, 2024, which will be the 50th anniversary of Aaroon’s record-breaking homerun in 1974. The film will focus on Aaron, his career in the MLB, and his navigation through “the depths of bigotry in the Deep South.” Saperstein is “honored to help bring [Aaron’s] brave and relentless pursuit to become baseball’s home run king to the screen.” The cast has not yet been announced.
Rob Morgan (Bull) is set to star in and produce the film Dixie Crystal, a crime film based on an FBI operation that uncovered the drug kingpins behind Harlan, Kentucky’s locally made methamphetamine ring. “Drugs and our war against them has become a pervasive part of American culture. Rob is the perfect blend of strength and humanity to embody that conflict,” director Conor Allyn states. Morgan will star alongside Jake Allyn, who will play Cam, a recovering addict that helps Jim Anderson (Morgan) rid the county of “dixie crystal” (the local’s term for the meth in their town). Morgan will produce alongside Margate House Films and Brian Loschiavo, Pastor Alvarado, and Jeff Molyneaux from Riverside Entertainment. Dixie Crystal will begin shooting this coming April in West Virginia and Kentucky and will enlist the help of Brooke’s House, an all-women recovery house.
Kelvin Mao
Documentary: Kelvin Mao’s documentary Dave Stevens: Drawn to Perfection, has been picked up by Samuel Goldwyn Films, who plans to release the film on demand on December 2, 2022. Mao’s documentary follows Dave Stevens through his life and career as an artist and illustrator in which he created the comic book series The Rocketeer, which was later adapted into a feature film.
Selena Gomez’s documentary My Mind & Me has received widespread praise from audiences for her honest portrayal of her battle with lupus and mental illness, all-the-while balancing her personal and public lives over the span of six years. The film’s debut on November 4th was followed by appreciation on Twitter, with fans calling Gomez an inspiration. The documentary has received 8.3 stars out of 10 on IMDb. The film was produced by Lighthouse Management & Media and was directed by Alek Keshishian.
AGBO
Industry Updates: Joe Russo, filmmaker and co-founder of the production company AGBO, has partnered with IHC Sports in a bid to help his clientele, which consists of some NFL players, navigate Hollywood as many athletes begin to seek out opportunities in the entertainment industry. This partnership will “provide IHC athletes with advice, guidance, and advocacy in their business dealings” as it relates to the entertainment industry.
