WIRE Buzz: Oscar Isaac tackling Ex Machina again; animated Mortal Kombat powers up; more

He’s already shown off his creepy villain bona fides in Alex Garland’s 2014 techno-horror hit Ex Machina. But now ace Star Wars pilot Oscar Isaac is reportedly set to tackle a new movie that takes its inspiration from a different Ex Machina altogether — the Eisner Award-winning comic book version from Brian K. Vaughan.

Via The Hollywood Reporter, everyone’s favorite trigger-happy flyboy from the galaxy far, far away has signed on to star in The Great Machine, a movie adaptation of Vaughan and artist Tony Harris' long-running Ex Machina comic series about a superhero who ends up as mayor of New York City. Isaac reportedly will play Mitchell Hundred (aka the Great Machine), the main character from the comics and, in Vaughan’s story, the world’s lone superhero. 

Set in post-9/11 New York, the series ran from 2004 to 2010 under DC Comics’ Wildstorm imprint. The movie adaptation is reportedly being scripted for Legendary Entertainment by Seberg writers Anna Waterhouse and Joe Shrapnel, with Vaughan (who along with Harris recently re-acquired the film rights) serving as a producer, alongside Jason Spire and Isaac himself. 

There’s no early word on a director or a release date, but you can catch Isaac now in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, as well as in the upcoming Dune adaptation from director Denis Villeneuve, due in theaters on Dec. 18.

THR also is reporting that funnyman and Community alum Joel McHale and Dexter’s Jennifer Carpenter, are lending their voices to the soon-to-debut animated movie based on the Mortal Kombat video game series from Warner Bros. and NetherRealm. McHale is reportedly voicing none other than Johnny Cage (how cool is that?!), while Carpenter will voice Kiss of Death specialist Sonya Blade.

The new film, revealed earlier this month as being in development, will be titled Mortal Kombat Legend: Scorpion’s Revenge, and will reportedly arrive sooner than the live-action version that’s slated to hit theaters this November. The film is being directed by Ethan Spaulding (Batman: Assault on Arkham) and written by Jeremy Adams (Supernatural, Teen Titans Go! vs. Teen Titans), with Mortal Kombat video game co-creator Ed Boon serving as creative consultant.

In addition to McHale and Carpenter, the reported full voice cast also includes Patrick Seitz as Scorpion and Hanzo Hasashi; Steve Blum as Sub-Zero; Jordan Rodrigues as Lui Kang; David B. Mitchell as Raiden; Ike Amadi as Jax Briggs; Artt Butler as Shang Tsung; Darin De Paul as Quan Chi; Robin Atkin Downes as Kano; Kevin Michael Richardson as Goro; Grey Griffin as Kitana and Satoshi Hasashi; and Fred Tatasciore as Demon Torturer.

There’s no word of a precise premiere date, but Mortal Kombat Legend: Scorpion’s Revenge is expected to land its first strike sometime in the first half of this year.

What happens when a comedic actor keeps telling anyone who’ll listen what a huge comic book nerd he is? Well, if you’re SNL alum Taran Killam, you eventually get to write a comic book yourself — and not just any comic, either. If the next entry in the comic book side of the Spider-Verse has your Spidey senses tingling, it’s Killam you’ll have to thank: He’s the writer behind the upcoming Spider-Verse #4, due out from Marvel this month as the newest installment in the ongoing, six-part Spider-Verse mini-series.

Killam described for Entertainment Weekly his take on our wall-crawling hero, and it definitely sounds like the kind of fun, experimental stuff that makes Spider-Man’s expanded presence throughout the Marvel universe such a wild ride. Killam’s Spider-Man is headed west — as in the wild, wild west — and he even has a name worthy of a six-shootin’ sheriff (or maybe even an outlaw): Webslinger.

Spider-Verse #4 (Marvel)

“I get to play in the Spider-Man world, I get to play cowboy, and it being its own thing means that I won’t screw up the continuity of anything else too much,” confessed Killam — who's already a fan of westerns like The Lone Ranger and The Magnificent Seven. 

The Killam-written Spider-Verse #4 arrives on Jan. 29, but he’s already spinning more yarns: EW reports that he’s also writing for the upcoming three-issue Empyre: Spider-Man series.