dreamworks

KUNG FU PANDA 3 Gets Co-Production Status Amid Studio Layoffs And Reduced Slate

It hasn’t been a good week at DreamWorks Animation with their stocks hitting a 52-week low on Thursday, ultimately leading to a huge number of layoffs. This also forced the company to reduce its feature film release plan to only two a year, including the long-awaited threequel to the largely China-produced Kung Fu Panda frachise. With actor Jack Black joined by an ensemble cast once more, the film is poised for a March 18, 2016 release following its pushback from December this year to avoid crossing sabers with J.J. Abrams’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Thankfully with the way things have been for the company, the film was finally granted co-production status which grants the filmmakers a larger share of box-office receipts as opposed to what it would have gotten as a foreign film, and will also bypass China’s quota system (that won’t be solved for another few years in […]

Director Rupert Sanders’s GHOST IN THE SHELL Gets A Release Date

Lee B. Golden III

Actress Scarlett Johansson‘s official listing for the lead role in Disney/Dreamworks’s forthcoming production of the live-action installation for Ghost In The Shell caused quite a stir among fans of the famed anime/manga property, including our own Khalil Barnett in recent weeks. Nevertheless, after at least two names were thrown in, one of those are now in the mix with Snow White And The Huntsman helmer Rupert Sanders to direct, and more updates are to come. As such, Deadline is forwarding the latest on the film’s dated release for April 14, 2017. Based on a script by William Wheeler, Johansson will play a semi-human cybernetically enhanced counter terrorist in a future world where society’s fixation on technological advancements have made it possible for most people to hack their way into virtually anything, anywhere, opening doors to all sorts of intrigue and corruption on a massive scale. In relative news, this summer’s upcoming release […]

Scarlett Johansson May Star In GHOST IN THE SHELL. Your Argument Is Invalid.

Lee B. Golden III

In the weeks since it was announced that The Wolf Of Wall Street co-star, actress Margot Robbie was up for the main role in director Rupert Sanders‘ live-action foray into Shirow Masamune’s popular 1989 manga, Ghost In The Shell, the usual assortment of blowhard netizens commented with their usual skepticism behind a non-Asian actress portraying a relatively Asian role. This opinionated approach has often been highlit in social media, potentially drumming up sentiments pointed toward racism in Hollywood as some may feel that Asians and minorities alike are still getting the short end of the stick, and quite frankly, they’re not completely wrong. Nevertheless, movies serve their purpose of entertaining the masses of those who go to see them. As such, it is only a matter of time now before we find out who will open their wallets to Sanders‘ live-action vision for the hyper-kinetic cyberpunk saga and its 1995 […]