Robin Wright Is Waiting to Join ‘Wonder Woman’ Prequel Series on HBO Max: ‘Maybe I’m Too Old!…Make That Happen For Me’

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle Editor Patty Jenkins says she was more than disappointed that no women were nominated for best director this year. “I give up, I give up,” the “Wonder Woman” director told me Saturday at the Charles Finch and Chanel pre-Oscars dinner at the Beverly Hills Hotel’s Polo Lounge. “I say that even with all of their push to have diversity. The numbers are just hugely imbalanced of who votes for these things. I sort of just stopped paying attention to it. It’s still going to take a long ways to go. It’s going to take a lot more to really see truly more diverse awards. I really appreciate the efforts that they’re making but we have a long way to go.”

Zack Sharf Digital News Director New “Lord of the Rings” movies are officially on the way from Warner Bros., and Andy Serkis is the first original cast member to say he’s ready to return to Middle-Earth. Serkis gave an iconic motion capture performance as Gollum in Peter Jackson’s original trilogy and reprised the role in “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.” “Look, [producers] Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens are sort of a second family that I have become part of and have gone on to make so many films with,” Serkis told BroBible’s Post-Credit Podcast. “And — let me tell you — they are the best and most incredible people to work with. I think that there are so many other potential Middle-Earth projects which could come about, and if they’re doing them, I would, of course, jump at the chance to have that relationship rekindled.”

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Disney CEO Bob Iger is touting “newness” when it comes to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The executive appeared at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecom Conference and questioned whether or not Marvel needs to continue churning out multiple sequels for individual characters. His comments arrived amid critical and box office disappointment for the most recent MCU tentpole, “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.” “Sequels typically worked well for us,” Iger said at the conference. “Do you need a third and a fourth, for instance? Or is it time to turn to other characters?” Not only is “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” one of the worst-reviewed Marvel films in history (its 48% on Rotten Tomatoes nearly matches the record-low “Eternals” score of 47%), but the film dropped a massive 69% at the box office in its second weekend, marking the second-biggest drop in MCU history. “Quantumania” currently stands at $420 million worldwide and $189 million domestically. While these grosses are higher than the first two “Ant-Man” movies, they’re also underwhelming considering “Quantumania” kicks off Phase 5 of the MCU and introduces the new Thanos-sized villain of the franchise in Jonathan Majors’ Kang the Conquerer.

EXCLUSIVE: There is a disturbance in the Force.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Keira Knightley was only 17, going on 18, when she became an international star with 2003’s “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.” But in a new interview with Harper’s Bazaar U.K., the Oscar nominee said playing an object of desire like Elizabeth Swann at such a young age left her feeling “stuck” and “constrained” in the industry. “I had quite an entrance into adult life, an extreme landing because of the experience of fame at a very early age,” Knightley said. “There’s a funny place where women are meant to sit, publicly, and I never felt comfortable with that. It was a big jolt.” “[Elizabeth Swann] was the object of everybody’s lust,” Knightley continued. “Not that she doesn’t have a lot of fight in her. But it was interesting coming from being really tomboyish to getting projected as quite the opposite. I felt very constrained. I felt very stuck. So the roles afterwards were about trying to break out of that…I didn’t have a sense of how to articulate it. It very much felt like I was caged in a thing I didn’t understand.”

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Seth Rogen got brutally honest about film critics during a discussion about mental health and self-doubt on the “Diary of a CEO” podcast. The comedian told host Steven Bartlett that negative reviews from critics “hurt everyone very much.” “I think if most critics knew how much it hurts the people that made the things that they are writing about, they would second guess the way they write these things,” Rogen said. “It’s devastating. I know people who have never recovered from it honestly – a year, decades of being hurt by [film reviews]. It’s very personal…It is devastating when you are being institutionally told that your personal expression was bad, and that’s something that people carry with them, literally, their entire lives and I get why. It fucking sucks.”

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Idris Elba ignited a firestorm on social media in February after he told Esquire UK that he stopped calling himself a “Black actor” because it created limitations for his career. The “Luther” actor was immediately accused of renouncing his Blackness, although actors such as John Boyega came to his defense and argued that critics weren’t paying attention to his message about damning Hollywood stereotyping. “I feel as I get older – I’m 50 now – we all have fears of saying too much, oversharing and whatno,” Elba now told The Guardian in a new interview. “And in this day and age, it’s really difficult to have an opinion if you’re in the public eye because it gets overly scrutinized, taken out of context, thrown into some sort of bullshit, zeitgeisty social media argument.”

Zack Sharf Digital News Director With the Oscars right around the corner, it’s good timing for Ruben Östlund’s satirical dark comedy “Triangle of Sadness” to make its streaming debut on Hulu. The film is up for three Academy Awards, including best picture and best director, so make sure to catch up on it before the 2023 Academy Awards air on March 12.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Chris Pratt’s voice role as Mario in “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” has been a point of debate ever since he was cast. Pratt is not Italian, after all, and many fans were left baffled when the movie’s first trailer dropped last October and revealed Pratt’s Brooklyn-heavy Mario voice. It’s not a concern for the film’s directors, Michael Jelenic and Aaron Horvath. The filmmakers told Total Film magazine that casting Pratt made sense given the Mario at the center of their story. “It’s a bit of an origin tale. It’s the story of Mario becoming Super Mario,” Horvath said about the film, adding that finding the perfect Mario voice meant finding an actor who could believably portray a plumber from Brooklyn who is “a blue-collar guy from a family of Italian immigrants.”

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Donnie Yen is making his “John Wick” debut in the upcoming fourth installment as Caine, a blind assassin caught between his ties to the villainous High Table and his friendship with Keanu Reeves’ eponymous killer. It turns out Yen’s character was not originally named Caine. The actor told GQ magazine that he called out the “John Wick: Chapter 4” script for including Asian stereotypes, leading to changes regarding his character’s name and appearance in the film. “The name was Shang or Chang,” Yen said of his “John Wick” character. “Why does he always have to be called Shang or Chang? Why can’t he have a normal name? Why do you have to be so generic? Then the wardrobe again — oh, mandarin collars. Why is everything so generic? This is a ‘John Wick’ movie. Everybody’s supposed to be cool and fashionable. Why can’t he look cool and fashionable?”

Ellise Shafer HBO Max’s “Dune” prequel spinoff “The Sisterhood” is going through some changes. Both director Johan Renck and star Shirley Henderson have exited the HBO Max series, Variety has confirmed. The news comes as the production takes a “pre-scheduled hiatus,” according to the streamer. “There are some creative changes being made to the production in an effort to create the best series possible and stay true to the source material,” a HBO Max representative said in a statement. “Johan Renck has completed his work on the series and a new director will be brought on; through mutual agreement Johan is moving on to pursue other projects. Additionally, Shirley Henderson will be exiting the series and will no longer be playing Tula Harkonnen.”

exit as co-showrunner last November.“As ‘Dune: The Sisterhood (wt)’ has entered a pre-scheduled hiatus, there are some creative changes being made to the production in an effort to create the best series possible and stay true to the source material,” an HBO Max spokesperson told TheWrap. “Johan Renck has completed his work on the series and a new director will be brought on; through mutual agreement, Johan is moving on to pursue other projects.

EXCLUSIVE: HBO Max‘s Dune prequel TV series’ long journey to the screen is taking another turn.Dune: The Sisterhood (wt), which started production in late November, is undergoing a creative shift, a director change and a recasting.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Nicolas Cage is making his Dracula debut in Universal Pictures’ upcoming horror comedy “Renfield,” and he’s already chomping at the bit to play the iconic bloodsucker in an expanded capacity. Cage’s Dracula in “Renfield” is a supporting role, as the film’s protagonist is the vampire’s long-suffering servant (played by Nicholas Hoult). The Oscar winner spoke to Total Film magazine about eyeing another Dracula project where he can better explore the psyche of the vampire. “You know, there are some minor moments here where you get to see some of the pathos in Dracula’s eyes,” Cage said. “That made me think that maybe one day I might like to try for a whole movie where you’re really understanding the psyche of the character. I didn’t really have the time to delve into that here.”

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Bryan Cranston said in an interview with CNN’s Chris Wallace that Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan could be received as a “racist remark,” and he asked both Wallace and viewers at home if they’ve ever taken time to consider why that is the case. “The ‘Make America Great Again’ – my comment is: Do you accept that that could possibly be construed as a racist remark?” Cranston said. “And most people, a lot of people go, ‘How could that be racist? Make America Great Again?’ I said, ‘So just ask yourself from, from an African American experience, when was it ever great in America for the African American? When was it great?’”

Zack Sharf Back in 2001, Sean Penn found himself next to Jack Nicholson in a speeding car on the way to meet Russian president Vladimir Putin. The two actors were in Russia for the world premiere of “The Pledge” at the Moscow Film Festival. The Penn-directed psychological drama starred Nicholson as a retiring police detective who vows to catch the killer of a young child. Penn recently spoke to The Independent about his anxiety-inducing journey to meet Putin. “We were put in a convoy,” Penn said. “We knew that Putin was going to be the honored guest. In the nature of that time and space, we accepted the invitation. We got in this convoy, and we were going as fast as they wanted to drive, with no care for whether it might have presented danger in the villages we drove through.”

Robin Wright is just waiting for a phone call about the Wonder Woman prequel series.

Zack Sharf “The Mandalorian” is about to launch its long-awaited third season next month, but creator Jon Favreau recently confirmed to BFM TV that scrips for Season 4 are already written and waiting to be shot. Disney and Lucasfilm have not yet officially announced a fourth season. Favreau announced he wrote Season 4 scripts during Season 3 post-production, stressing that it’s essential the scripts be done so that the series can continue to fit into and anchor the larger framework of the “Star Wars” universe. There are a handful of new “Star Wars” series on the way, including the highly-anticipated “Ahsoka.” “Season 4, yeah I’ve written it already,” Favreau said. “We have to know where we’re going to tell a fully formed story. We had mapped it out, Dave [Filoni] and I, and slowly you start to write each episode. I was writing it during post-production. All of it has to feel like a continuation and one full story.”

At the end of last month, DC Studios co-heads James Gunn, and Peter Safran revealed their grand plans for the future of the DCEU.

At the end of last month, DC Studios co-heads James Gunn and Peter Safran revealed their grand plans for the future of the DCEU.