The Film Future Of “Uncharted” Is A Little, Well… Uncharted

As someone who finally got a PlayStation and then proceeded to binge all four Uncharted games in a week (who needs sleep?), I have a deep and abiding love for the fantastic characters of the games. From the disaster-prone and clever Nathan Drake, to the brilliant and bad-a Elena Fisher, to the snarky and loyal Victor Sullivan, I grew invested in their crazy adventures and intricate stories.

So when I heard that Sony was planning to make a live-action Uncharted film, I lost my mind. In late July, Joe Carnahan (The Grey, writer and director) was confirmed as the writer for film, although his current production schedule prohibited him from directing it. Other people attached to making the film happen are producers Charles Roven (Man of Steel) and Avi Arad (The Amazing Spider-Man).

However, don’t get your hopes up. Recently, Sony took the Uncharted film off of their production schedule. The film was originally slated to be released June 30th, 2017, and has been in the works since 2009. But rather than just get a “TBA” or be moved to a different release date – because, even if they got all their ducks in a row today, it’s extremely unlikely that they could have a completed film in less than a year – like other delayed major motion pictures, Uncharted was removed from the production schedule altogether.

Some speculate that this could mean that the film was cancelled entirely.

Insert Pac-Man dying SFX here. Sony's video game adaptation of UNCHARTED, set for 6/30/17, has been removed from their release calendar.

— Exhibitor Relations Co. (@ERCboxoffice) September 1, 2016

But wait! I have some (admittedly weak) evidence to the contrary. The same day that the removal was announced, writer Joe Carnahan tweeted that he had just finished the opening scene in the script – and that it was “REALLY GOOD.”

It would be really odd to announce something like that the same day as a cancellation, right? So, maybe, the film is just being postponed for a long time, and so they just decided to take it off the production schedule until they figured everything out? Maybe? Hopefully?

So I guess you can sorta kinda get your hopes up. I don’t know. It’s kind of an emotional roller coaster at this point.

https://twitter.com/carnojoe/status/771544858020327424

So don’t be disappointed. But don’t get your hopes up too high, either. Maybe keep them at a reasonable level (or a wee bit lower), so that, if a later release date for the film is announced, you’re pleasantly surprised (and if it remains cancelled indefinitely, the pain won’t hurt so much).

Personally, I’m going to be crossing my fingers and knocking on wood everyday until I hear that the film is back on track. If they keep to the video game formula of incredible visuals, engaging story, and brilliant and dynamic characters, they’ll have a truly fantastic movie. If Sony accurately captures the relationship between Nate, Elena, and Sully, they’ll easily capture themselves a box-office hit.

So here’s hoping that they’re just pushing the release date back until 2018.

But until I find out for certain, in the words of Victor Sullivan, I’ll be “sweatin’ like a hooker in church” (but for different reasons, obviously).

 

Image Credit by: Brink

Hayley Joins The Call For A Netflix Revival Of Agent Carter – Do Your Part And Sign the Petition!

Peggy Carter is a strong, incredible, kick-ass character. She’s a competent woman in a time when women were still an underestimated and repressed majority.

She’s brilliant, oh so clever, and her confident statement – “I Know My Value” – has inspired hundreds of thousands of fans, as well as their tattoos, cosplays, and fan art.

Agent Carter is, in my opinion, one of the best Marvel shows aired outside of Netflix. And I’m not the only one who holds this belief, as the outcry from those selfsame fans upon the cancellation of Agent Carter was explosive, and as fierce as their gun-toting role model.

Within hours of the news of ABC’s massive blunder, one particular fan, Arnau S., started a petition to bring the show to Netflix.

With a day we had thousands of votes. Within a week, 75,000. As it stands, three weeks after the petition was first launched, we now have over 119,000 votes.

If you wish to add your voice to the rallying cry, click on the link below:

Save Agent Carter, Bring Her to NETFLIX – Petition

But ABC had already signed Hayley Atwell (the fantastic actress who embodies Peggy Carter) for their newest show Conviction. As long as the network that abandoned Agent Carter kept Hayley busy, could our petitions and votes every amount to anything?

Don’t lose hope yet, Lipstick Commandoes! Hayley Atwell herself has stepped up to the plate, stating that she is completely committed to reviving Peggy Carter and bringing her to Netflix.

In Hayley’s own words, she’d be willing to “shoot on the weekends”, if she had to – anything to give Agent Carter the run it deserves.

We’d get a wrap-up for that insane cliffhanger that season 2 left us with. And, according to Hayley, we might get some more of Peggy’s backstory – more specifically, her mysterious past and the events that created the fantastic heroine that we all adore.

“The showrunners were talking about a kind of twist, I suppose… something to do with the family,” she said. “They suggested there’d be more to do with my brother.”

The hints and clues and teasers are fantastic, making me ask questions that I’d never considered before.

As for whether or not we’ll see Peggy turn the S.S.R. into S.H.I.E.L.D., Hayley has this to say: “I think I’m going to save that for my own movie.”

The crowd exploded into riotous applause – and rightfully so.

Peggy needs – no, she deserves – to have her story told right, told well, and told in its entirety.

[SPOILERS]

Just because Peggy died in Captain America: Civil War, it doesn’t mean that her story is over.

[END SPOILERS]

And hopefully the epic combination and team-up of Hayley Atwell and us, her ardent fans, will convince Netflix of this fact.

So far, with Daredevil and Jessica Jones, Netflix has been my hero in terms of Marvel TV shows. With they pull through again, and save another hero?

We know Peggy’s value.

Does Netflix?

Devil and Spider and Kingpin, Oh My! – Whispers of a Most EPIC Crossover

The Kingpin of Crime.

The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen.

Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man.

All three of these fantastic, iconic characters might converge into one, amazing storyline. Nothing has been confirmed by ‘the superpowers that be’, but both Vincent D’Onofrio and Charlie Cox (the incredibly actors who play Kingpin and Daredevil, respectively, in Netflix’s original show) have expressed vocal and enthusiastic interest in pairing with (or against) our favorite web-slinger.

For those not in the know (and if you’re not, shame on you), Kingpin is one of Spider-Man’s most iconic and frequent villains. And, in his own way, one of the most dangerous. Kingpin is a criminal genius, and always has contingency plans upon backup plans upon master plans, all of them revolving around either furthering his underground empire, or squashing Spider-Man like a bug (pun intended). Pair that with Kingpin’s unnatural strength and utterly ruthless character, and you have one incredibly formidable villain – one that has frequently beaten Spider-Man, in fact.

On a different note, Daredevil and Spider-Man actually team up quite a lot in the comics. They frequently have each other’s backs. Charlie Cox himself pointed out that, in one particularly memorable occasion, Matt Murdock had to defend Daredevil. So Spider-Man put on Daredevil’s costume so that Matt could defend him without revealing his identity.

I’m extremely partial to the idea of Daredevil and Spider-Man pairing up, because they’re basically two sides of the same coin.

Although he is a devout Catholic, Matt Murdock is dark and jaded, because he’s had to fight for every inch against a world that continues to either try and break him, or underestimate him. He constantly hears the suffering of his city – the gritty and the bloody and the horrifying – and it has forced him to, in his own way, become like that. Yes, Hell’s Kitchen needs Daredevil. But it also made him.

On the flip side, Peter Parker (while a Christian) is a devout scientist. He’s a boy genius, who life went far too quickly from dodging bullies and hopeless crushes to dodging bullets and crushing villains. Although his origin story started with death (his Uncle Ben), Peter took a terrible situation and turned it around in the only way he knew how – by using his situation to better the lives of those around him. We all know his famous quote, but we very rarely understand how much he sacrifices for it. He may mask it all with quick comebacks and witty humor, but Spider-Man has lost much – his uncle, his girlfriend, his best friend, his aunt – all in the name of “with great power comes great responsibility”.

Spider-Man and Daredevil both care about the little guy, the every-man (and woman). While the Avengers and Doctor Strange and the Fantastic Four all deal with world-ending and extraterrestrial dangers (sometimes of their own making), they pay very little attention to what happens below skyscraper-level. While they might believe that the suffering of the few outweighs the loss of the many, to Daredevil and Spider-Man, that is never an acceptable solution or compromise.

That’s why, although they might have occasional team-ups with the Avengers, Daredevil and Spider-Man will always work better as vigilantes, as solo acts who occasionally ‘help a brother out’.

Anyway, to bring it all in – I’m 100% behind these two worlds converging. With the end of season 2 of Daredevil featuring the Kingpin rebuilding his criminal empire from prison, there’s a very real chance that he could escape in time to torment Spider-Man. And where Kingpin goes, you better believe Daredevil will follow.

So let’s cross our fingers, knock on wood, and pray to the gods of geekdom that these two worlds and mediums collide. It promises to be nothing short of fantastic – and would open a huge range of possibilities, crossover-wise, between the television and film worlds.

The 2017 film is to be called Spider-Man: Homecoming (and don’t worry, it won’t be another origin story).

So come on, Marvel – bring it home.

The Villain For Sherlock Series 4 Has Been Cast – And He’s Perfect!

Ever since the Victorian special episode, waiting for news about the next series of Sherlock has been like waiting for flying cars to exist – we can hope really hard, but it doesn’t mean we’re going to get anything.

Except now we have something! Just a small thing, hardly anything really, but it’ll be enough to keep me excited and hopeful (I swear, they plan it like this).

But I won’t keep you waiting any longer.

We have a villain for Series 4!

That’s right, you read that correctly. Toby Jones (Captain America, Harry Potter, Hunger Games), who’s perhaps one of my all-time favorite creepy villain actors, will be filling the role of Sherlock’s newest nemesis.

Exactly which villain he’ll be playing, however, is still a mystery.

The only information that writer, EP, and co-creator Steven Moffat has for us is this: “Delighted to have Toby Jones on board, bringing to life one of [Sir Arthur Conan] Doyle’s finest villains.”

But which villain?!

The anticipation for the next series of Sherlock is killing me – just throw me off Reichenbach now and I’ll return, perfectly on time yet terribly inconveniently, for Series 4. The fact that we’ve still got a year until it airs… the anticipation is just awful (and yet, so very delicious, don’t you agree?).

All we know about Series 4 is that Sherlock is back in London (or at least on British soil), and that John and Mary Watson are preparing for having a child.

I can’t wait to see what terrible things Toby Jones has in store for our beloved characters.

But more than that, I can’t wait to see Sherlock’s reaction to a tiny human – messy, illiterate, illogical things that they are.

Sadly, there’s no teaser or promo trailer for Series 4 yet, so here’s the trailer for the Victorian special episode that I mentioned at the beginning. Hope you enjoy!

Frequency Gets a TV Show Remake… And It Looks Amazing!

Tune in to this blast from the past remake about a literal blast from the past (but not the 1999 Brendan Fraser film of the same name).

Frequency, a film from the year 2000, is getting a television show reboot.

Now that you know that, reread the first sentence a few times. I promise it makes sense.

For those not in the know, Frequency is a fantastic thriller starring Jim Caviezel (Person of Interest, The Passion of the Christ) and Dennis Quaid (The Day After Tomorrow, Pandorum).

The story revolves around a long-dead father and his now-grown son, connected over time via an old radio and a freak electrical storm.

Caviezel (the son), who’s now a cop, attempts to change the past by saving his father (Quaid) from the fire that killed him when Caviezel was just a kid.

But in doing so, they spark a chain reaction that spirals into chaos. I’ll try not to spoil anything else, but if you’re interested, here’s the trailer:

But that’s enough about the film. CW is now remaking the film into a television series – but it seems the only thing they’ve taken from the original is the concept, as the stories are drastically different.

For one, it’s about a daughter and her father. Peyton List (The Tomorrow People, Flashforward) will play Raimy Sullivan, with the role of her father, Frank Sullivan, played by Riley Smith (Radio, New York Minute).

Two, not only is she a cop – she’s a cop following in her father’s footsteps (in the original film, the father was a fireman).

Three, her father was killed while on the trail of a serial killer – a serial killer that’s been silent until the old ham radio connects Raimy and Frank through time.

After she warns Frank of his impending death, she somehow – improbably, impossibly – manages to save her father’s life. But things devolve rapidly from there, as the daughter’s life begins to fall apart.

Instead of her father dying, her mother dies at the hands of the serial killer. Instead of having a loving almost-fiancé, he has no idea who she is and has never met her.

Is there a way for her to fix her life, catch the serial killer, and save her mother and her father?

I don’t know… but I’m extremely excited to find out.

Here’s the trailer – I know that I’ll be hulu-ing (yes, it’s now a word, deal with it) the heck out of this show when it comes out this fall!

 

Harley Quinn Set To Star In An All-Female Superhero Film – Go DC!

Hey all you ‘pumpkins’ and ‘puddins’ out there, check it: Margot Robbie, Suicide Squad’s very own Harley Quinn, is producing and starring in an all-female superhero movie!

It’s about freaking time, amiright?

This won’t even be the first female-led superhero film. DC’s Wonder Woman is set to release next year, with Israeli actress Gal Gadot reprising her role from Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice.

Despite the fact that Marvel had a ridiculous head start on this whole superhero movie trend, DC continues to pull ahead in terms of diversity and mold-shattering.

Meanwhile, Marvel is frustratingly dragging their heels on their one female superhero film: Captain Marvel. Production has been delayed twice, with the estimated release date now tentatively set for 2019. Marvel doesn’t even have an actress lined up to play the powerful and popular Carol Danvers – or, if they do, they’ve stayed mum on the subject. Shoot, they don’t even have a director.

Setting that aside, the thing that really gets my goat is the lack of a Black Widow film. I mean, seriously? Yes, Marvel’s been making some ‘noises’ about finally creating one, about how a film starring Scarlet Johansson as Natasha Romanoff is at the ‘top of their wishlist’.

Frankly, the fact that Marvel has the next eight male-led films lined out, but we’re only getting vague whispers of a film for one of the most hard-hitting, dynamic, powerful, brilliant, clever, intriguing, backstory-rich characters of the MCU – shoot, the entire Marvel-verse, period – is incredibly frustrating.

C’mon Marvel, you’re doing great almost everywhere else! Jessica Jones, Daredevil, Agents of SHIELD… why do you continue to fall short on the big screen? (I’m not going to give you Agent Carter… dropping her is an unconscionable mistake and tragedy. Shame on you, Marvel. Shame.)

… … …

Whew. Sorry for that rant. Now lets talk about what DC is doing right.

Even though Dawn of Justice got mixed reviews from fans and critics alike, Warner Brothers and DC continued to produce and film Wonder Woman.

When Margot Robbie pitched the idea for an all-female super- and anti-hero film, Warner Bros picked it up right away, despite the fact that Suicide Squad hasn’t even been released in theaters.

Basically, DC and Warner Brothers have realized something that Marvel has yet to comprehend – that female superhero films shouldn’t rely on whether or not their male-counterpart films are successful. They should be allowed to stand on their own, because they’re heroes and bad-asses in their own right.

And what a line-up of bad-asses, too. Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, Batgirl, Birds of Prey, Katana, and Bumblebee.

For those who aren’t complete tenth-level geeks, lemme give you a brief description of each super-heroine.

Harley Quinn: an incredibly complex, unique anti-hero. Her story is fantastically layered. Yes, she is a young woman who fell in with the wrong guy. And yes, that guy frequently beats, puts down, and nearly kills her. And yes, like the battered-wife cliché, she always returns to him. But she’s so much stronger than just that. She does have a set of morals (even if they’re easily screwed by her ‘Mistah Jay’). She does often want to do the right thing. She has a close (if complicated) relationship with Batgirl and Poison Ivy. She does eventually stand up for herself and metamorphasize into an amazingly strong, dynamic anti-hero. I will always love her, and I have high hopes for Margot Robbie’s portrayal of her. She clearly not the version from the original Batman show that I came to know and love, but Margot has the potential to make her own, unique version of the ever-famous harlequin.

Poison Ivy: although she’s often drawn very scantily clad, Ivy is an environmentalist at heart. Well, more of an eco-terrorist, but you get the idea. She loves the earth and wants to protect it from all those who are destroying it. She’s a brilliant scientist, who uses a combination of toxins and pheromones from her plants to commit her ‘evil deeds’ – although most of those selfsame deeds are to protect endangered species and the environment. She has an extremely close relationship with Harley Quinn, a sort of very-close-forever-friends-with-benefits-sometimes. Ivy also sometimes has a relationship with Batman, but we won’t get into that right now.

Batgirl: does she really need an explanation? I will say that I hope she’s the Barbara Gordon incarnation of Batgirl. Daughter of Commissioner Gordon, she has an incredibly unshakable sense of justice and right and wrong. She pushed herself to become a crime fighter all on her own, without the Bat-training that Robin had. And, of course, who doesn’t love a redhead that can kick ass like a boss?

Birds of Prey: this is a comic book team that has a long and complicated history, with a wide range of different female members. The team was originally founded by Black Canary (Dinah Lance) and Barbara Gordon (called Oracle at the time), although two other potential main characters we might see are Huntress (Helena Bertinelli) and Lady Blackhawk (Zinda Blake). There are a ton of possibilities, here.

Katana: another character from the upcoming Suicide Squad film, Tatsu has an intricate and incredibly sad ‘origin story’. Two brothers loved her, but she loved only one, Maseo. When she married Maseo and had two children with him, his brother, Takeo, become consumed with jealousy, and killed Maseo with a magical katana. In the fight, a fire was started, and while Tatsu was distracted defeating Takeo and taking his swords, her children were caught in the blaze. Encouraged to flee by the soul of her husband within the sword, Tatsu barely escaped with her life, and began training under a samurai master. Shortly after her ‘graduation’, she moved to the United States to become a superhero.

Bumblebee: she is DC’s first African American superhero. I knew and fell in love with her during the show Teen Titans (the original, amazing version, not this new baby-fied monstrosity). She is absolutely brilliant, and although she has no superpowers of her own, she created her own super-powered battle suit. It enhances her in every way, and gives her the ability to fly and shoot electrical blasts that mimic bee stings. She’s all kinds of sassy, and I can’t wait to see who’ll play her.

And that’s it. Sorry for the long nerd-splosion, but I wanted to be sure that you’d appreciate how fantastically awesome this upcoming film is.

An all-female super- and anti-hero film, pitched and produced by Margot Robbie, picked up by Warner Bros, and directed by an as-of-yet-unnamed female director… this has all the makings of something new and revolutionary and perfect.

It’s about time we got a carnage film where chicks get to blow a bunch of stuff up.

Bring. It. On.

For those who are interested, here’s the trailer for Suicide Squad, starring the fantastic Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, who’s now my absolute hero. Here’s hoping that the tone of her film is just as fun and violent as this one.

Russell T. Davies’ “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” BBC One Trailer Review

Hear Ye! Hear Ye! All ye Kings and Queens, Knights and Nobles! I implore thee to lend thine ears to this most glorious news, straight from the halls of BBC One itself!

Whovians, perk your ears.

Russell T. Davies, the brilliant writer who returned the joy of Doctor Who to millions of fans, both old and new (and borrowed and blue), has now decided to reboot another classic – albeit a little bit older than the idea of a mad man in a blue box.

Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

That’s right, you read that correctly. Rather than giving us nightmares of the dark, gas masks, and angel statues, Davies will now be dabbling in faeries, donkey-men, and walls named Snout.

Speaking of Snout, guess who’s playing him? Lemme give you Whovians a few hints: he played a companion in the 1966 Doctor Who film, he (sadly) knocked three times, and he’s the brilliant granddad of the illustrious Doctor Donna. That’s right, Bernard Cribbins will be reuniting with Davies, as he plays the hilarious ‘wall within a play’, within the play (I know it doesn’t seem it, but that sentence makes total sense).

It’s a straight up Whovian reunion, as the crew that worked with Davies to reboot Doctor Who is the same crew that’ll be working with him on A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Basically, it’s guaranteed to be amazing.

Or, rather, worked with him, as the 90-minute reinvention of the hilarious, iconic Shakespearean play is already in post-production. It’ll be released on BBC One at the end of May (THIS MONTH!). As a matter of fact, pre-screening of this film was on May 6^th in Cardiff (tickets disappeared ridiculously fast, I’m told). I can’t believe Davies snuck this up on us like this.

Wait… yeah, actually, I can.

Interesting note, there’s also a couple more things that Davies is sneaking in his reimagined version of this love-struck comedy – like a lesbian kiss between Titania, Queen of the Faeries, and the Amazonian Queen Hippolyta.

When questioned regarding this ‘controversial’ decision, Davies had this to say:

“My feeling about the end of the play is that Titania is submissive to Oberon and he gets away with his tricks. It’s very male-female, male-female, so I wanted to have a man with a man, a man who was dressed as a woman with a man, and a woman with a woman because it’s 2016, so that’s the world now … The plays reinvent themselves constantly, every generation does them differently, so if there’s a problem kiss me instead!”

I think I’ll pass. But setting aside the ‘modernization’ fuss that old Shakespearian fogies are trumpeting, the play is set in Greece. As a matter of fact, it revolves around the marriage of the Duke of Athens and the Queen of the Amazons. And Greece is a notoriously sexual and open culture. I mean, you’d be hard pressed to find a society more sexually open and accepting than ancient Greece.

Anyway, setting that aside, I’m super excited for this newest adaptation of what is definitely my second favorite Shakespeare play (I don’t care how cliché I sound, Hamlet is and always will be my favorite).

There is an all-star cast of characters. Maxine Peake (Criminal Justice, Silk, Theory of Everything) is starring as Titania, with her on-stage, tempestuous husband to be played by Nonso Anozie (Zoo, Cinderella, Game of Thrones). Their human-world counterparts, Theseus and Hippolyta, will be played by John Hannah (Spartacus, The Mummy, Atlantis) and Eleanor Matsuura (Alan Partridge, MI-5, Cuffs), respectively. Hiran Abeysekera (Lion in the Tent) will star as the ever-mischievous Puck, and Matt Lucas will be the hapless and hilarious Bottom (Alice in Wonderland, Little Britain, Pompidou).

But it’s not just a bunch of hard-hitting, ‘the most British Brits that ever Britished’ that will star in this fantastic film-adaptation. There’s a whole bunch of new talent that will be taking to the stage – erm, screen.

Outside of Kate Kennedy (Catastrophe) as Helena, the other three love-befuddled youths are all completely new faces. Paapa Essiedu is the ever-determined Demetrius, Prisca Bakare is the fourth-wheel Hermia, and Matthew Tennyson will play the besotted Lysander.

About his unique, hodge-podge cast, Davies had this to say: “This is such an exciting range of actors from stage and screen, from wild comedy to high drama, and some making their first ever appearance on camera. The Dream is coming to life like never before.”

And for Russell T. Davies, this truly is a dream. When the drama was first announced, Davies admitted that remaking A Midsummer Night’s Dream with BBC has been a dream of his for his entire adult life.

In his words: “…only the BBC can put on a play like this, for all the family, smack-bang in the heart of primetime. With a riot of prosthetics, CGI, magic and action, it needs the brilliant Doctor Who team in Cardiff to bring it to life.”

With such a perfect combination of passion, talent, and skill, how can this be anything other than fantastic? I’ve got high hopes, and can’t wait for it to air.

Knowing my luck, it won’t release in the US for another six months. Oh well, there’s always iTunes…

UPDATE: Here’s the teaser trailer for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by Russell T. Davies: