The summer box office season is now in full swing, and the showbiz news is getting hot. It’s time for a round-up!
Top Gun: Maverick opened big in North America and internationally, with a $124 million domestic box office take and another $124 in international markets, according to Variety. That makes it the top non-superhero movie opening in the pandemic era, and fourth over-all in the period, behind Spider-Man: No Way Home, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and The Batman. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness was still #2 for the weekend, and has generated $375 million in North America and $869 million overall.
Lucasfilm announced Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi, a new animated anthology of short stories featuring Jedi, which begins streaming on Disney+ in Fall 2022. This series shares the title with comic series published by Dark Horse Comics between 1993 and 1998. The new shorts will showcase Jedi from the prequels including Qui-Gon Jinn, Mace Windu, Count Dooku, Anakin Skywalker, and Ahsoka (see “‘Star Wars: Ahsoka’“).
Lucasfilm released a teaser trailer for Star Wars: Andor (see teaser below). The Andor series was announced back in 2020 (see “Investor Day“), and will tell the tale of Cassian Andor, played by Diego Luna, as a prequel to Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. The teaser trailer gives glimpses of the beginnings of the rebellion against the Empire. This series is scheduled to stream on Disney+ starting August 31, 2022.
Marvel Studios dropped a brand-new trailer for Thor: Love and Thunder (see trailer below). This movie was first announced in 2019 at San Diego Comic-Con (see “‘Thor,’ ‘Blade’ Movie News“), but didn’t begin filming until 2021 (see “‘Thor: Love and Thunder’ Starts Filming“). It features a star-studded cast including Natalie Portman (as Jane Foster/Mighty Thor), Christian Bale (as Gorr the God Butcher), Taika Waititi (as Korg), Chris Pratt (as Star-Lord), Matt Damon, Russell Crowe, Vin Diesel (voice of Groot), Melissa McCarthy, Dave Bautista (as Drax), and Chris Hemsworth (as Thor). Thor: Love and Thunder will release into theaters on July 8, 2022.
J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot is set to exec produce a live-action Speed Racer series for Apple, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Hiram Martinez (Snowpiercer) and Ron Fitzgerald (Westworld) are co-writers and co-showrunners. Tatsunoko Productions, which produced the original anime (based on the manga by Tatsuo Yoshida) and controls the rights, has approved the project, according to the report. A previous live-action take, by the Wachowski’s, was released in 2008 to disappointing results (see “’Speed Racer’ Could Face Bump in Road“).
Lucasfilm also teased the new Willow original series, which is headed to Disney+ on November 30, 2022 (see teaser below). This series features Warwick Davis reprising his role as a now older wizard Willow as he sets off with a group of adventurers to bring balance back to the land. The cast also includes Ruby Cruz, Tony Revolori, Amar Chadha Patel, Dempsey Bryk, Erin Kellyman, and Ellie Bamber (see “‘Willow’ Introduces Cast“).
AfterShock Media and Hulu have reached a deal to adapt soon-to-be-released AfterShock comic A Calculated Man, by Paul Tobin and Alberto Albuquerque, to a series for the streamer, AfterShock announced. Peter Calloway (Cloak & Dagger, Legion) will showrun the project. Source: ICv2
