City Sandman Showbiz Latest News and Updates

EXCLUSIVE: MRC has made a deal to develop Pornsak Pichetshote’s Eisner Award-winning graphic novel bestseller The Good Asian into a series. James Wan, Michael Clear and Rob Hackett are producing for Atomic Monster. Will Rowbotham and Luke Maxwell are producing for 3 Arts. 

EXCLUSIVE: WME Independent has unveiled the first image of Haley Bennett in the upcoming 19th Century champagne drama Clicquot ahead of launching sales on the title at the European Film Market.

Oliver Jackson-Cohen and Doctor Who and Victoria actress Jenna Coleman have been announced as key cast on Northern England-set action thriller Jackdaw, the debut feature of Jamie Childs, whose drama directing credits include The Sandman and His Dark Materials.

EXCLUSIVE: Shooting on Fantastic Friends season two is set to wrap, with more Harry Potter and Game of Thrones alumni featuring.

This week will be a deluge of guild and craft organization awards announcements. The Art Directors Guild revealed their nominees for their 2023 ADG Awards and there were genuinely few surprises.

EXCLUSIVE: Munya Chawawa, the British-Zimbabwean comedian, is hoping to translate his wildly viral online sketches into his own television show.

It’s no mystery what audiences were watching on Netflix over the holiday weekend.

EXCLUSIVE: David Zaslav isn’t happy with Netflix.

EXCLUSIVE: Veteran Saw cast member Shawnee Smith is circling the newest installment in the billion-dollar horror franchise from Lionsgate and Twisted Pictures, which is currently in production in Mexico City, Deadline hears. 

Brendan Fraser is looking back on one of the most iconic movie roles he ever worked — but behind the scenes, it wasn’t as fun as the finished product made it look!

EXCLUSIVE: New York Times bestselling author Neil Gaiman (The Sandman) is the newest addition to the cast of the dark comedy Nandor Fodor and The Talking Mongoose, which Adam Sigal wrote and is directing for the fan-owned production company Legion M. He joins an ensemble led by Simon Pegg, which also features Minnie Driver and Christopher Lloyd.

Production is underway in Serbia for a fourth season of Miss Scarlet and The Duke, the Masterpiece mystery starring Kate Phillips (The Crown, Wolf Hall) as the first-ever female detective in Victorian London. The PBS series also features Stuart Martin (Jamestown, Army Of Thieves) as her childhood friend, professional colleague and potential love interest Inspector William “The Duke” Wellington.

EXCLUSIVE: Apple TV+ has rounded out the ensemble cast of Chief of War, its upcoming series starring, written and executive produced by Jason Momoa. Te Ao o Hinepehinga (Breakwater), newcomer Kaina Makua, Moses Goods (NCIS: Hawai’i), Siua Ikale’o (NCIS: Hawai’i), Brandon Finn (Three Women),James Udom (The Sandman) Mainei Minimaka (See) andTe Kohe Tuhaka (The Convert) are set as series regulars in the drama from Fifth Season and Chernin Entertainment. In addition to Momoa, they join previously announced series regulars Luciane Buchanan and Temuera Morrison.

EXCLUSIVE: Joanne Mitchell (The Outing) has signed on to direct the psychological horror Sybil, starring Rebecca Calder (Love Me Do), James Fleet (Four Weddings and a Funeral), and Sacharissa Claxton (Sandman).

EXCLUSIVE: Philip Glenister and Steffan Rhodri are to front a factual-based drama for the BBC.

EXCLUSIVE: Netflix has greenlit a second season of Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman.

Directed by Ben Stiller and from his RedHour productions, the Apple TV+ series surreal office works thriller “Severance” became a massive hit in the winter of 2022. Trying to capitalize on the buzz, Apple TV is moving fast on season two and has added a bevy of new actors as production has begun.

EXCLUSIVE: Haley Bennett is set to star as the titular role in Clicquot from writers Erin Dignam (Land, Submergence) and Christopher Monger (Temple Grandin).

and have spoken about their pansexuality. The superhero Deadpool is pansexual in the Marvel comics, something Ryan Reynolds wants the character to show more in the next film.

My Chemical Romance wrapped up their five-night residency at the Kia Forum in Inglewood, California. There, they performed the deepest cut in their entire catalogue: ‘Sister To Sleep’, a song they’d performed live just once before, nearly a decade ago, and never released in any official capacity.Initially written during the sessions for their second album, 2004’s ‘Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge’, the band performed ‘Sister To Sleep’ for the first and only time on June 26, 2003, when they played a small club show in New York City.After the only known recording of it – a low-quality bootleg from the New York show – gained traction in forums and on platforms like MySpace, the song went on to become a cult favourite within My Chemical Romance’s online fanbase.

Netflix has been in the video game space for close to a year and is doubling down.

Avenged Sevenfold have said their 2013 album ‘Hail To The King’ “cut a little too close” to Metallica.The album went platinum and earned the band two number one singles, but it was often criticised for sounding too much like Metallica.Now, in a social media post, frontman M. Shadows has admitted that the album did cut “too close” to the band in response to a fan post online.Shadows said on social media: “‘Hail to the King’ (the song) streams more than double any other tracks we have weekly.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Netflix has taken peak TV to a new peak. In a data point sure to fuel more quantity-versus-quality debate, Netflix broke its own record for number of original episodes released in a single quarter — with 1,026 in the third quarter of 2022, according to a tally by Wall Street firm MoffettNathanson. That’s more than five times any other streaming rival: Amazon Prime Video and Hulu released 223 and 194 episodes, respectively, and Disney+ debuted 140 original episodes, per the report. HBO Max, now owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, released 114 episodes in the third quarter — significantly fewer episodes than usual and comprising the lightest slate for the service since Q2 2020, the second quarter after launch. WBD has been paring back HBO Max’s content slate in recent months as it looks to cut costs.

EXCLUSIVE: Thuan Dang has joined APA as an agent in the scripted literary department and Lucy Tashman has been promoted to Director of Content Development at the agency.

Soundgarden‘s legendary 1994 hit ‘Black Hole Sun’ – check it out below.The new video was created by  Midjourney, which describes itself as an “independent research lab exploring new mediums of thought and expanding the imaginative powers of the human species”.Ahead of the Soundgarden video, the same bot was used last year for an equally stunning AI-generated video for Metallica hit ‘Enter Sandman’.For the new ‘Black Hole Sun’ video, they instructed the bot to turn each of the lyrics in Chris Cornell‘s powerful song into a representative image.See the results below.Last month, surviving members of Soundgarden and Nirvana joined forces to perform Soundgarden classics at the Los Angeles Taylor Hawkins tribute concert.After celebrating Hawkins’ memory and music with a special six-hour gig in London earlier last month (September 3), ‘The Taylor Hawkins Tribute Concert’ took over LA’s Kia Forum on September 27, with a bounty of special guests.During the show, Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic and Pat Smear formed a new band with Kim Thayil and Matt Cameron for two songs, all fronted by The Pretty Reckless‘ Taylor Momsen.Meanwhile, earlier this year tributes were paid to Chris Cornell by his Soundgarden bandmates, Rage Against The Machine and the late frontman’s wife Vicky Cornell to mark the fifth anniversary of his death. Cornell took his own life on May 18, 2017.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer With peak nerd TV upon us, there’s never been a better time to be a fan of genre programming – or David S. Goyer, a devotee and prolific writer-producer of genre fare. Goyer and his Phantom Four Films partner Keith Levine produced Hulu’s new David Bruckner-directed “Hellraiser” movie, which launched Friday, and are in the middle of filming their latest take on classic IP, “The Omen” prequel movie “The First Omen,” in Rome. Beyond that, the pair are in post-production on the second season of Apple’s “Foundation” adaptation, breaking the writers’ room for more episodes of the “Batman Unburied” podcast for DC and Spotify. They’re also working on two spinoff podcasts, including “Riddler,” featuring Hasan Minhaj, and a Batgirl/Barbara Gordon project. And they’re in the early stages of developing a dramatic series revolving around Michael Moorcock’s “The Eternal Champion” books for Skydance and Apple TV+ with “Foundation” writer Dana Jackson. If that’s not enough, they’re also holding their breath for a renewal of the Warner Bros.-produced “The Sandman” at Netflix.   

James McAvoy speaks on stage during the His Dark Materials interview at New York Comic Con 2022 on Thursday (October 6) in New York City.

K.J. Yossman Ben Kingsley is set to star in a feature film adaptation of “Violent Cases,” the first ever graphic novel from Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean. The feature will be led by writer Mike Carey, director Colm McCarthy and producer Camille Gatin (collectively the creative team behind “The Girl With All the Gifts”) and produced by Scary Monster, Lakesville Productions and Foton.Pictures. Carey has also worked on “Lucifer” and other books in the Sandman universe, which Gaiman also created. “‘Violent Cases’ is a journey into the mind of Neil Gaiman, as a famous author recounts fragmented childhood memories and visits to an osteopath who once worked for Al Capone, weaving a dark and twisting tale about stories, our memory, violence and the ways we can’t escape our past,” reads the logline.

Wilson Chapman editor October is a boom time for horror stories, with fans preparing for Halloween by spending the month binging the best slasher films, monster shows and horror books. And for those who would prefer to turn off the lights and listen to a spooky story, audiobooks provide plenty of bone-chilling options.

Naman Ramachandran Neil Maskell, whose acting credits include “Kill List” and “Peaky Blinders,” makes his feature directorial debut with “Klokkenluider,” which is playing at the BFI London Film Festival. A dark comic thriller, the film revolves around a hapless government whistleblower and his partner who hide out in a remote Belgian cottage, accompanied by two eccentric bodyguards. “‘Klokkenluider’ came out of a combination of circumstances. I was on holiday in East Flanders and the atmosphere of the house we were staying in set off some voices in my head. There were four characters and they were trapped there but it took me a while to work out who they were” Maskell told Variety.

Julia Fox stuns in a puffy silver gown for the 2022 New York Ballet Fall Fashion Gala held at David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center on Wednesday night (September 28) in New York City.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor It’s not a dream: The third installment of Neil Gaiman’s “The Sandman” audio drama on Audible is now available. All 19 episodes of “The Sandman: Act III,” with James McAvoy again lending his voice to the title role, are now available exclusively on Audible. It’s a surprise release for the third seasons of the popular series that brings to aural life the world of Gaiman’s best-selling fantasy graphic novels published by DC. The third installment is again adapted and directed by co-executive producer Dirk Maggs and narrated by Gaiman, who also returns as creative director and co-executive producer. “The Sandman: Act III” also features an original score from BAFTA-winning composer James Hannigan.

Netflix has released a new trailer for Enola Holmes 2 starring Millie Bobby Brown – check it out above.The actor reprises her role as the teenage sister of Sherlock Holmes in the sequel, alongside other returning cast members Henry Cavill as Sherlock, Louis Partridge as Viscount Tewkesbury and Helena Bonham Carter as Eudoria Holmes.New cast members include Adeel Akhtar (Utopia) as Lestrade, Sharon Duncan-Brewster (Bad Girls) and David Thewlis (The Sandman).Original director Harry Bradbeer has also helmed the sequel, from a screenplay penned by Jack Thorne.A synopsis for the sequel reads: “Enola’s newest adventure begins after a young girl working in a match factory hires her to locate her missing sister.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter Lukas Gage has joined the cast of the “Dead Boy Detectives” series at HBO Max, Variety has learned. The eight-episode series was ordered at HBO Max back in April. It is based on the DC comics of the same name as well as “The Sandman,” from characters created by Neil Gaiman and Matt Wagner. The official series description states, “It’s a fresh take on a ghost story that explores loss, grief, and death through the lens of Edwin Payne (George Rexstrew) and Charles Rowland (Jayden Revri), two dead British teenagers, and their very alive friend, Crystal Palace (Kassius Nelson). So, it’s a lot like a vintage detective series — only darker and on acid.”

Serinda Swan (Coroner), Ferdinand Kingsley (Sandman) and Rory Cochrane (Winning Time) are set as series regulars opposite Alan Ritchson in the upcoming second season of Prime Video’s Reacher. Also joining the cast are guest star Domenick Lombardozzi (Magnum P.I.), along with Luke Bilyk (DeGrassi: The Next Generation), Dean McKenzie (Shooter), Edsson Morales (Black Summer), Andres Collantes (Two Sentence Horror Stories), Shannon Kook-Chun (The 100), Ty Victor Olsson (Supernatural), Josh Blacker (See), and Al Sapienza (Coroner). As previously announced, Maria Sten will return for Season 2 as Frances Neagley and Shaun Sipos will play David O’Donnell. Filming will begin this month.

BreAnna Bell “Cobra Kai” is still kicking at the top of Netflix’s Top 10 list following its Season 5 premiere on Sept. 9. During the Sept. 12-Sept. 18 viewing window, the show scored 95.6 million hours viewed –– which is still a high note despite its drop from the prior week’s astounding 107 million hours watched. Sliding in at No. 2 is Season 2 of “Fate: The Winx Saga.” The new installment debuted on the streaming service on Sept. 16, raking in 49 million hours watched in its first three days of availability. Season 1 of “The Crown” continued its reign on the list, moving up to the third spot with 40.8 million hours viewed, while Season 2 of the series entered the list with 16.7 million hours viewed.