This week in news: Blade Runner 2 gets a start date while Labyrinth 2 doesn’t, Frank Underwood plots up a new season, Norman Reedus prepares for a scrap and all change at Doctor Who...
House Of Cards schemes its way to a fifth season
It was a big week for Kevin Spacey spotters. The actor appeared in feline guise in the trailer for Nine Lives and a sinister new teaser spot for House Of Cards, before news broke that the Netflix political thriller will be carrying on into a fifth season, albeit without its creator Beau Willimon. Does this mean President Underwood is managing to cling on to power like some kind of unscrupulous barnacle in season four? Is he bouncing back from some so-far unseen calamity? One thing we do know is that he’ll not be getting any more big-hearted.
Blade Runner, up and running
That Blade Runner sequel we thought would never happen? It’s got an official start date. Sicario man Denis Villeneuve will, it was revealed this week, be cranking the cameras in July, with distribution deals now in place with Sony and Warner Bros.. The Canadian director will be overseeing a script by Hampton Fancher and Michael Green that sends us back into Philip K. Dick’s sci-fi realm a few decades after Ridley Scott’s 1982 classic. Harrison Ford and Ryan Gosling will be reporting for duty this summer. Get the full low-down here.
Reedus and weep
The Walking Dead has lumbered slowly and surely to become one of the biggest shows on the planet. The new issue of Empire charts that rise, speaking to one of the main reasons behind it, Norman Reedus, and also provides some juice on his character’s clash with newly-arriving big bad, Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), in the second half of season six. “There’s going to be a fight,” Reedus promises Empire. “I won’t tell you who, when and where, but I can promise you a fight. All of us are about to clash with that motherfucker. There’s a lot of turmoil in the second half of Season 6.” Strap yourselves in.
We're Wolves (not swearwolves)
The marvellous Kiwi vampire comedy What We Do In The Shadows introduced a group of self-therapising werewolves led by cuss-averse Rhys Darby's Anton. The pack were breakout stars from the film, with their desperate attempts to control their lycanthropic tendencies and natural urge to bite things winning cult status. This week brought the rather excellent news that their spin-off comedy is still pressing ahead. It will be called We’re Wolves and have the combined talents of Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi working on fitting blend of the supernatural and the very mundane for Anton and co. to negotiate.
Steven Moffat prepares to regenerate
Showrunners were dropping like flies this week. After Beau Willimon and House Of Cards, Steven Moffat handed in his chips on Doctor Who. Moffat will be replaced in the BBC hot seat by regular writer Chris Chibnall, and, make no mistake, it is a hot seat. The pressure on Moffat to keep the show’s creative tanks full is substantial, especially with Sherlock to focus on too, although Whovians shouldn’t expect too much immediate change. Moffat will be working on the Christmas special and his final season will still run next year, before Chibnall takes over. Postpone the leaving party for the time being, in other words.
Matt Smith will be photographer Robert Mapplethorpe
Celebrated snapper Robert Mapplethorpe is known for incendiary opinions as much as his artful portraiture, nudes and still lives. As such, he seems a fascinating firebrand subject for a biopic starring, say, Matt Smith. Sure enough, Smith has signed up for a role once earmarked for James Franco, joining Girls’ Zosia Mamet as musician Patti Smith, whose Horses album his work adorns. DIG! director Ondi Timoner is ecstatic to found the two of them. "I am ecstatic to have found Matt Smith and Zosia Mamet,” he enthused. "They will bring indelible passion, raw humanity, and authenticity to this timeless, inspiring story.”
New Labyrinth film (not) planned
In the news-but-not-really-news basket this week falls the unexpected idea of a Labyrinth sequel. The much-loved Jennifer Connelly/David Bowie fantasy was, went reports earlier in the week, getting a fresh take that would involve Sony TriStar, the Jim Henson company, Guardians Of The Galaxy co-writer Nicole Perlman and presumably a tonne of goblins. And then… it wasn’t. The power of voodoo, see.