WIRE Buzz: Snake Eyes recruits Hard Master; Hawkeye targets Mad Men writer; more

Snake Eyes is coiling around a new addition to the next installment in the resurgent G.I. Joe movie franchise, with martial arts action star Iko Uwais reportedly in talks to play one of the good guys.

Via The Hollywood Reporter, Uwais — who also appeared in Star Wars: The Force Awakens as Razoo Quin-Fee, one of the sidekicks in the gang of bounty-jilted Han Solo nemesis Kanjiklub — is circling the role of Hard Master, the tough, sword-wielding fighting expert who trains and mentors Snake Eyes in the stealthy ninja arts. 

Iko Uwais in Wu Assassins (Credit: Netflix)

Uwais is currently starring as Kai Jin in Netflix's supernatural action crime drama Wu Assassins. However, he's probably best known for electric performances in intense action flicks The Raid: Redemption and The Raid 2: Berandal. He’s looking to join a growing Snake Eyes cast that also includes Crazy Rich Asians star Henry Golding as the badass ninja commando himself, alongside Andrew Koji (Warrior) as Storm Shadow, Snake Eyes' longtime rival (and occasional cohort).

Directed by The Divergent Series’ Robert Schwentke and backed by Paramount Pictures, Skydance, and Hasbro Toys’ AllSpark Pictures film division, Snake Eyes is set to strike theaters on Oct. 16 of next year.

Disney+ has zeroed in on a writer for its much-hyped upcoming Hawkeye series starring Jeremy Renner. The ongoing adventures of Clint Barton will be scripted by Mad Men writer Jonathan Igla, per The Hollywood Reporter. Igla has signed on as both a writer and executive producer for the new show, filling in one of the final remaining creative puzzle pieces for the teams behind Marvel’s lineup of live-action television series for Disney+.

The show will reportedly track Haweye's lost days in the wake of Thanos’ universe-clearing snap, and will also include Kate Bishop as a mentoring focus for Renner’s iconic Avengers marksman, while also delving deeper into his dark side as Ronin.

THR reports the show is “tentatively” slated to debut in the fall of 2021, making it one of the later Marvel Phase 4 series to arrive on the soon-to-launch streaming platform. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier is expected to premiere sometime next fall, followed in spring of 2021 by both WandaVision and Loki — with all the series starring the same actors we’ve grown to know through the first 22 MCU films, culminating in Avengers: Endgame.

Disney+ is set to go live beginning Nov. 12.

With just a little more than a month remaining before The Purge returns to terrorize TV for a second season, USA has dropped a new full-length trailer that shows off way more blood, creepy masked vigilantes, and fever-pitched chaos than anything it’s yet shown.

Season 2 posits a new question about how a Purge-permissive society manages to function during the 364 days of the year when legalized violence supposedly takes a back seat to the rule of law.

Following stars Derek Luke (13 Reasons Why, Spartan), Max Martini (Pacific Rim), Paola Nuñez (The Son), and Joel Allen (Never Goin’ Back) as they carry their terrors around with them all year long, the new batch of episodes “explores how a single Purge night affects the lives of four interconnected characters over the course of the ensuing year, all inevitably leading up to the next Purge,” according to USA.

Season 2 of The Purge is set to unleash mayhem on USA Network (a property of NBC Universal and its parent company, Comcast, which also owns SYFY WIRE) beginning with the 9 p.m. ET season premiere on Oct. 15.