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WIRE Buzz: Gemma Chan, Barry Keoghan circling Eternals; TWD spinoff adds a lead; more
News about Marvel’s Phase 4 is coming fast and furious in the wake of the studio’s epic rollout of projects at this year's San Diego Comic-Con, and now the Eternals movie — the MCU’s next ensemble hero feature in the post-Avengers era — may be picking up yet more big-name leads.
Variety reports that Crazy Rich Asians star Gemma Chan is close to joining Eternals in an unnamed role — though she played Minn-Erva earlier this year in Captain Marvel. The report indicates that Chan’s Eternals role, if it materializes, could be altogether different from her earlier MCU appearance — though again, details are still light.
Meanwhile, Entertainment Weekly reports that Dunkirk and The Killing of a Sacred Deer star Barry Keoghan is also in talks to play an unspecified role.
Chan and Keoghan would be coming aboard an already-stacked Eternals cast that includes Angelina Jolie (Thena), Kumail Nanjiani (Kingo), Richard Madden (Ikaris), Salma Hayek (Ajak), Lauren Ridloff (Makkari), Brian Tyree Henry (Phastos), Lia McHugh (Sprite), and Don Lee (Gilgamesh).
Created by Jack Kirby, the comics version of the Eternals follows an exceptional strain of demi-godlike genetic experiments, originally brought into existence by the Celestials. Their character names are intentionally-modified takes on the names of the Olympic Greek gods — a reference to the Eternals’ similarly godlike stature among humans, whom they've protected through the centuries from supernatural harm.
Directed by Chloé Zhao (The Rider), Eternals is slated to arrive in theaters Nov. 6 of 2020.
Fresh off dragging a jetliner through a small Virginia town, AMC's next-generation Walking Dead spinoff has just picked up another cast member to join the starting lineup in the still-untitled TWD series being directed by Kong: Skull Island’s Jordan Vogt-Roberts.
Deadline reports that Scream 4’s Nico Tortorella has shambled onto the new zombie show in a leading part, taking on the role of a character named Felix, who’s described as “an honorable man of his word who isn’t afraid to fight for others’ safety and acceptance.”
For the past decade, Tortorella has played leading roles in a handful of TV series geared toward teen-demographic viewers, and is currently heading into a 6th season on TV Land’s Younger, where he stars alongside Sutton Foster and Hilary Duff as Josh, a 26 year-old tattoo artist.
Tortorella joins a previously-announced cast that includes Alexa Mansour (Hope), Nicolas Cantu (Elton), Hal Cumpston (Silas), Annet Mahendru (Huck), and Aliyah Royale (Iris). The spinoff, the third Walking Dead project that will hit AMC, is aimed at following the stories of the first generation of humans ever to be born in the wake of the zombie plague.
Vogt-Roberts, who famously harbors a creative soft spot for all things dystopian, was revealed at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con as the director for the new show’s first batch of episodes. Deadline reports that Vogt-Roberts will direct the first season, alongside longtime Walking Dead writer and producer Matt Negrete, who’s serving as showrunner.
The new series is set to premiere at AMC in spring of 2020.
Finally, Dark Phoenix may not have lit up fan expectations when it hit theaters in June, but at least we know it’s not for lack of trying — especially for iconic composer Hans Zimmer.
The Oscar-winning Lion King scorer revealed this week that Dark Phoenix’s runtime can barely scratch the surface of the nearly 16 hours’ worth of music he composed for the film, and even shared a download link to Xperiments From Dark Phoenix, a small sampling of unreleased “random tracks & demos” that didn’t make it into the finished product.
Whether Dark Phoenix inspired X-Men fans is its own question, but evidently it inspired Zimmer — a prolific creator whose massive film discography already includes scores for movies like Gladiator, Madagascar, The Simpsons Movie, Sherlock Holmes, and Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy — to name but a few.
