Craig Gillespie has entered talks to direct ‘Supergirl’.
Milly Alcock will star in the movie.
The film should be shooting later this year.
Things are moving –– or perhaps, given the main character, flying –– ahead for the ‘Supergirl’ movie. At least, if Deadline’s report ends up panning out.
Craig Gillespie, the director behind such movies as ‘I, Tonya’, ‘Cruella’ and, most recently, ‘Dumb Money’, is now in talks to direct the new take on Kara Zor-El for DC Studios.
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What is the plan for the Supergirl movie?
Milly Alcock in ‘House of the Dragon.’ Photo: Ollie Upton / HBO.
While nothing has been formally confirmed, it appears that the Supergirl character (with Milly Alcock of ‘House of the Dragon’ in the part, will first crop up in a cameo in James Gunn’s ‘Superman’.
She’ll then appear in her own movie, which was announced alongside the rest of Gunn and Safran’s plan for the first wave of their new movie/TV universe.
‘Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow’ will be a big-scale sci-fi film based on Tom King and Bilquis Evely’s comic run. It features a “darker, harsher” version of Kara Zor-El raised on a surviving chunk of Krypton who sees everyone around her die.
This is what Gunn said at the time of the announcement:
“This is a very different type of Supergirl. In our film, we see the difference between Superman, who was sent to Earth and raised by loving parents from, you know, the time he’s an infant, versus Supergirl, who was raised on a rock chip-off of Krypton and watched everyone around her die and be killed in terrible ways for the first 14 years of her life, and then came to Earth when she was a young girl and is much more hardcore. She’s not exactly the Supergirl we’re used to seeing.”
It would seem that the ‘Woman of Tomorrow’ subtitle has dropped off, but that may return.
Ana Nogueira has been adapting the comic book with some input from King. Aside from her (plus Gunn and Peter Safran producing and DC executive vice president Chantal Nong as executive producer), that’s it for the team so far.
Gillespie brings a lot of experience to the table –– he’s directed several movies with female characters at their heart and is also adept at balancing tone.
When will ‘Supergirl’ be in theaters?
Warner Bros. has yet to lock down a release date for the movie; which is not a bad idea since zero footage exists for it yet. But the plan for production is for ‘Supergirl’ to kick off shooting later this year once Gunn has completed work on ‘Superman’ and the studio’s focus can switch to the other ‘Super’-character.
(Center) James Gunn and the cast of ‘Superman.’ Photo: James Gunn’s Instagram Account.
Other Movies Similar to ‘Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow’:
Sebastian Stan will play a younger Donald Trump in a new movie.
‘The Apprentice’ will also feature Jeremy Strong and Maria Bakalova.
Iranian director Ali Abasi is behind the movie, which has started shooting.
While he became well known for playing James “Bucky” Barnes AKA The Winter Soldier in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Sebastian Stan has carved out a niche playing real-life people, including Tommy Lee in ‘Pam & Tommy’, Robinhood Markets CEO Vladimir Tenev in ‘Dumb Money’ and Jeff Gilooly, who was married to skater Tonya Harding in ‘I, Tonya’.
But his latest role will raise eyebrows higher than most –– he’s on board to play a younger Donald Trump in a new movie called ‘ The Apprentice’. But though it has the name of the TV series that first brought Trump to national attention, it appears to take place before he gets that gig, and long before his Presidential term.
Former President Donald Trump on ‘Meet The Press.’ Copyright: 2023 NBCUniversal Media, LLC.
‘The Apprentice’ is billed as an exploration of power and ambition, set in a world of corruption and deceit, and will examine Trump’s efforts to build his real estate business in New York in the ’70s and ’80s, also digging into his relationship with infamous attorney Roy Cohn.
It’s a mentor-protege story that charts the origins of a major American dynasty. Filled with larger than life characters, it reveals the moral and human cost of a culture defined by winners and losers.
Who else will star in ‘The Apprentice’?
(L to R) Jeremy Strong, Sarah Snook, and Kieran Culkin in season 4 of HBO’s ‘Succession.’ Photograph by Claudette Barius/HBO.
Deadline reports that ‘Succession’ actor Jeremy Strong will be heading back into the world of rich New York types (albeit real ones this one) to play the role of Cohn.
Maria Bakalova, meanwhile, who broke out in ‘Borat Subsequent Moviefilm’ and most recently was heard voicing Cosmo in ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3’, is on board to play Ivana, Trump’s first wife (who, it’s worth noting, died last year and is buried in, of all places, Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey).
Who is making ‘The Apprentice’?
HBO Max’s ‘The Last of Us.’ Photo: Warner Media.
This new movie comes from Iranian director Ali Abbasi, who has made films including ‘Holy Spider’ and ‘Border’ and who shot two episodes of HBO’s acclaimed video game adaptation ‘The Last of Us’.
In theaters everywhere on September 29th, ‘Dumb Money’ is a funny, sharp satire of the GameStop stock story, which had people gripped in early 2021.
Following what happened when “retail investors” seized upon the idea of driving up the value of the games store and Wall Street’s reaction, it’s an entertaining true account of one of the most fascinating financial stories of the last decade.
‘Dumb Money’ is the ultimate David vs. Goliath tale, based on the insane true story of everyday people who flipped the script on Wall Street and got rich by turning GameStop (yes, the mall videogame store) into the world’s hottest company.
In the middle of everything is regular guy Keith Gill (Paul Dano), who starts it all by sinking his life savings into the stock and posting about it.
When his social posts start blowing up, so does his life and the lives of everyone following him. As a stock tip becomes a movement, everyone gets rich –– until the billionaires fight back, and both sides find their worlds turned upside down.
In some ways, ‘Dumb Money’ feels like a companion piece to Hulu’s ‘Pam & Tommy’ from earlier this year, though that might primarily be thanks to the presence of Rogen, Offerman and Stan in front of the camera, and director Craig Gillespie behind it (Gillespie was a producer and director for the series).
But in several ways, it is much better than that show, since it chronicles a subject that doesn’t haven’t such personal, painful ramifications as for Pamela Anderson. It also tells its story in more compact form.
Gillespie, here working from a script by Lauren Schuker Blum and Rebecca Angelo (who first met as reporters on the Wall Street Journal and have several TV series under their combined belts, and adapted Ben Mezrich’s book ‘The Antisocial Network’), dials down on what really made the Gamestop stop impactful, as well as drawing out real laughs from certain moments.
A big positive for the movie was widening the scope beyond the story of Keith Gill and the billionaires whose world he disrupted with his YouTube channel and Reddit posts.
Smaller personal stories such as those of GameStop employee Marcus, college students Riri (Herrold) and Harmony (Ryder) and nurse Jenny (Ferrera), help to explain the central narrative while letting the solid performers (Ferrera is especially good, and between this and ‘Barbie’ it proves she deserves many more opportunities to shine).
Which is not to say that Dano isn’t fantastic as Keith, who posts under the name “Roaring Kitty” and is using his financial analyst smarts to advise others and take big share bets himself. As his on-screen fortune (and infamy grow), Dano and co-star Woodley (as his wife, Caroline), offer up a compelling portrait of a couple confronting an outrageous situation.
On the hedge fund side, Rogen is particularly good as Gabe Plotkin, who has risen from humble beginnings to run a hedge fun dealing in the billions. He’s certainly let the power that money has brought go to his head and is introduced yelling on the phone at a realtor representing a fancy house he wants to buy simply to tear down so he can build a tennis court to use during the pandemic.
Elsewhere, Offerman is typically funny and gruff as the even wealthier Ken Griffin, who smugly dines on incredibly rare food at exclusive restaurants and offers to help Gabe out when he gets into trouble, only to find himself in corporate hot water when his company works with the startup that lets ordinary people buy shares without commission.
The whole thing is told with verve, energy and humanity, and marks it out as one of the most impressive examples of the social comedy form to happen along since Adam McKay switched from the goofy likes of ‘Anchorman’ to his own sharpened satires.
And perhaps the biggest recommendation I can make about the movie is that it uses Pete Davidson in a way that is not completely annoying. Playing Keith’s boisterous slacker brother, Davidson’s particular energy is on display in a useful, fitting way. Give it an Oscar for that alone!
‘Dumb Money’ does take its time at first to set its scene, occasionally falling into the trap of repeating information. It might have you checking your watch initially. But that setup is necessary to set the scene –– somehow it doesn’t have the same energy as the rest of the movie.
Likewise, were it not for the fact that they are real people, the likes of Gabe, Ken and fellow rich type Steve Cohen (D’Onofrio) would come across as cartoon characters in a fictional film. Here, they are all too terrifyingly confident in their ability to stop the “dumb money” amateur investors.
As with most true stories of this kind, there is a certain dose of cold water awaiting you by the end –– despite the movie’s claim that the GameStop situation changed Wall Street’s way of doing business for the better, you’re left with the lingering feeling that we’re just counting down to the next financial scandal as the division between rich and poor grows.
That, though, is more to do with the real world than the movie’s story.
If you’re fascinated by how the “little people” can get on over on the rich types (at least for a while) and want to watch it happen in entertaining and clever fashion, ‘Dumb Money’ is well worth a bet at the theater.
Angela Lansbury as Jessica Fletcher in ‘Murder, She Wrote.’ Photo courtesy of Hallmark Movies & Mysteries.
There are many examples of TV series making the jump to movie theaters. Some are updates years after the original show went off the air (apart from re-runs) such as ‘The A-Team’ or ‘Charlie’s Angels’.
Others were produced either while the show was still running or not long after, and continued the story with the series cast, including ‘The X-Files’ or ‘Sex and the City’.
‘Murder, She Wrote’, given that it last aired in 1996 (though four TV movies followed, the last released in 2003) falls squarely into the first category and not least because we sadly lost iconic star Angela Lansbury last year.
It’s almost surprising that no one has gotten this far into development on a ‘Murder’ movie given the show’s enduring popularity and cult appeal.
But Universal Pictures (which makes sense since Universal Television produced the show) now has a deal with producer Amy Pascal and Lauren Schuker Blum and Rebecca Angelo, who wrote upcoming based-on-truth comedy drama ‘Dumb Money’ to make it happen.
According to Above The Line, Blum and Angelo were hired to write the script before the WGA strike began, but obviously forward movement on that front is in limbo until the writers’ and actors’ strikes are resolved.
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What is ‘Murder She Wrote’?
Angela Lansbury as Jessica Fletcher in ‘Murder, She Wrote.’ Photo courtesy of Hallmark Movies & Mysteries.
For those who didn’t grow up in the 1980s or have somehow gotten this far in life not knowing the name Jessica Fletcher, ‘Murder She Wrote’ was a crime procedural drama series that kicked off on CBS in 1984.
It stars Lansbury as Fletcher, a seemingly mild-mannered crime writer who has a penchant for digging into mysteries of all kinds. Working and living primarily in the fictional town of Cabot Cove, Maine, she’s consistently underestimated by police and criminals and ends up solving many murders.
Her travels during the series –– which ran for 12 seasons –– have taken her all over the United States and abroad.
In that time, Lansbury was nominated for an Emmy every single year, and won various awards. She reprised the role in the four TV movies.
Lansbury has said in the past that she’d have been open to making a comeback appearance, which would make for a fun cameo in any potential movie. But in a 2015 interview with Zap2It, she said it was no longer feasible:
“I think it would be a downer. In some way, we’d have to show her as a much older woman, and I think it’s better to maintain that picture we have in our mind’s eye of her as a vigorous person. I’m still pretty vigorous, especially in the garden, but if I wanted to transform myself back into the woman I looked like then, it would be ridiculous. And I can’t do that.”
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Who is the team behind the new planned movie?
(L to R) Rebecca Angelo, Writer/Executive producer, and Lauren Schuker Blum, Writer/Executive producer, attend the gala screening of ‘Dumb Money’ at the Toronto International Film Festival. Copyright: Eric Charbonneau. Photo By Eric Charbonneau.
Amy Pascal is a former Sony chairperson who has become a powerful and influential producer via her Pascal Pictures company.
Schuker Blum and Angelo got their start as reporters at the ‘Wall Street Journal’ and segued into dramatic writing on the staff of ‘Orange Is the New Black’. They have several scripts in development, including one about the GamerGate phenomenon which Pascal is also producing, and a new take on ‘The Wolfman’ for Universal.
As for ‘Dumb Money’, which chronicles the GameStop short squeeze share affair from the POV of various people who were involved, that movie will be in theaters on limited release on September 22nd before going wide on September 29th.
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Angela Lansbury as Jessica Fletcher in ‘Murder, She Wrote.’ Photo courtesy of Hallmark Movies & Mysteries.
The impact of the writers and actors’ strikes continue to be felt in Hollywood. As studio representatives and the Writers Guild/SAG-AFTRA (the latter of which represents performers) argue in the press and over social media about fair contracts, the big companies are facing the prospect of releasing expensive titles without name stars available to promote them.
So, what are they doing? Delaying the movies, of course! The latest to push their plans back to next year is Warner Bros., which has just announced a big shift for ‘Dune: Part Two’ to March next year.
Director Denis Villeneuve’s giant science fiction action epic, the follow-up to 2021’s successful first entry, and the continued adaptation of Frank Herbert’s sprawling tome, had been set for a November 3rd theatrical release.
And it positions ‘Dune: Part Two’ as an awards player, hoping to replicate the success of the first part –– which scored 10 Oscar nominations and won six.
With a shift to March 15th, 2024, it’s unlikely to qualify for next year’s Oscars (that, though, remains to be seen, since, like TV awards the Emmys, the Oscars could shift themselves if the strikes continue).
‘Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire’ is in production right now and will be in theaters on March 15th next year. Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures.
And ‘Dune’s shift means some moving around for movies that had already claimed 2024 release slots on Warner Bros.’ calendar: ‘Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire’ had been sitting on the March 15th date but will now stomp off to April 12th.
The Warner Bros. titles join a long list of films that have seen their release dates moved –– Sony is shifting the strategy for based-on-truth GameStop stock comedy drama ‘Dumb Money’, going from a single wide release to a platform that ramps up starting in Los Aneles and New York on September 15th, while the likes of ‘Kraven the Hunter’ and animated sequel ‘Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse’ are also moving (though the latter is likely due more to its creators finessing the story and animation rather than strike concerns).
