Next week is Thanksgiving, so this will likely be the last End of Week Production Notes for November as Hollywood tends to shut down, although I’m guessing some productions will just keep going through the December holidays to make up for any lost time.
This week’s COVID production issue comes from the world of daytime television as CBS‘ long-running The Bold and the Beautiful received a positive test return for a crew member on Wednesday, forcing the production to use contact tracing to isolate those whom he or she had come into contact, this according to Deadline. Since the production had already been planning to take a few days off for Thanksgiving, they managed to combine two days of shooting into one with the remaining cast and crew. The Bold and the Beautiful was one of the very first productions to resume back in June, following strict COVID protocols with only one day off to switch testing labs after receiving a few false positive results.
A few movies have either wrapped or are close to wrapping before the holidays. Filmmaker Kevin Williamson took to social media to announce that the 5th Scream movie, which will simply be called Scream, can be added to the list of wrapped films. That gives Williamson over a year to do post since Paramount Pictures won’t be releasing the movie until January, 2022.
That’s a wrap on Scream, which I’m excited to announce is the official title of the next film! Nearly 25 years ago, when I wrote Scream and Wes Craven brought it to life, I could not have imagined the lasting impact it would have on you, the fans. (1/3) pic.twitter.com/RCuhVUclG4
— Kevin Williamson (@kevwilliamson) November 18, 2020
On the other end of things, production began on Mark Water‘ gender-switched remake of 1999’s She’s All That this week. That one stars Tik Tok icon Addison Rae, who is challenged to turn the school’s biggest loser into the prom king, being loosely based on George Bernard Shaw‘s play Pigmalion, but again, with genders flipped.
In case you missed it, you should also check out our latest “Back to Work” piece with filmmaker Ric Roman Waugh talking about prepping his next film Kandahar in Saudi Arabia.
This week saw a lot more theatrical bloodletting, and it doesn’t look like the situation with movie theaters reopening is going to improve any time soon. Over the past few months, we’ve seen plenty of blockbuster movies being delayed to 2021 or sold to streaming services, but Warner Bros. finally came to a decision with their last remaining 2020 movie with any blockbuster potential, Patty Jenkins‘ Wonder Woman 1984. Although the superhero sequel starring Gal Gadot will still open in theaters on Christmas Day, but it will also debut concurrently on HBO Max, where it will be available to watch for a full month. It will then leave HBO Max and only be available to see theatrically for a month before being available to watch on VOD.
This rather odd release strategy at least seems somewhat considerate towards the failing movie theater chains and indie movie houses that have not been able to keep their doors open. (I hope to write something more about what is happening with theatrical and how it migt affect production sometime in the next few weeks.)
Not to be outdone, it was then reported by Deadline that Walt Disney Pictures is also looking to get out of the theatrical business, at least in terms of its non-Marvel movies, as movies like Craig Gillespie‘s Cruella movie, starring Emma Stone, Robert Zemeckis‘ Pinocchio movie staring Tom Hanks as Gepetto, and the David Lowery version of Peter Pan and Wendy might all pivot to a release on the company’s streamer, Disney+. This might not be as surprising as Warners’ decision when it comes to its Wonder Woman movie, because Disney already has moved theatrical releases like Mulan and the upcoming Soul to its streamer, although the Pinocchio and Peter Pan and Wendy movies haven’t even begun filming yet. They actually weren’t scheduled to start until next March or April, so they wouldn’t likely be ready for release until 2022, so it’s a little pessimistic for Disney to not think that theaters will be reopened and back to capacity by then. (Or maybe they just don’t care and want to cut theatrical out of the money altogether.)
You can keep track of the latter two productions, their start dates and locations over at Below the Line‘s Production Listings.
Some casting news and attachments from the week includes reports that Oscar-winning actor Alicia Vikander might team up with The Sopranos‘ Terence Winter for a series based on Frederick Knott‘s 1952 play, Dial M for Murder. It was famously turned into a feature film in 1954 by Alfred Hitchcock, but it could be interesting as a series, especially because it will be reworked to be from the female perspective. Unfortunately, this project ended up forcing Winter to leave the planned HBO Max Gotham PD series that was spinning off from Matt Reeves‘ upcoming The Batman movie, starring Robert Pattinson.
Jon M. Chu‘s live action Lilo and Stitch movie for Disney+ was only announced last week, and there are already rumors about who might star in the title human role, 16-year-old Hawaiian actor Siena Agudong, although it hasn’t been confirmed with an official Disney release or by any of the trades. Agudong starred in the Disney Channel Original Movie, Upside Down Magic.
Veteran actors Jonathan Pryce and Laurence Fishburne have been added to the cast of the Chris Pine spy thriller All the Old Knives for Amazon Studios, which will be directed by Janus Metz (Borg McEnroe) and co-star Thandie Newton (Westworld). Pine and Newton play ex-lovers, one a CIA spy, the other an ex-spy, who meet for dinner with the knowledge that only one of them will survive. Pine played the title character in the Kenneth Branagh-directed Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, while Newton starred opposite Tom Cruise in his 2000 sequel, Mission: Impossible 2, so both already have previous spy experience.
As per usual, we’ll wrap things up with few trailers, including two that are very likely to be heavy awards season contenders in the new year. The Netflix drama Pieces of a Woman is the English language debut of Hungarian filmmaker Kornél Mundruczó (White God), which stars Vanessa Kirby and Shia Labeouf as parents who lose their baby tragically. After that, there’s the first trailer for Oscar winner Regina King‘s directorial debut, One Night in Miami, a fictional account of a chance encounter between Cassius Clay (Eli Goree), Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir), Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom, Jr.) and Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge). Lastly, we have a film called The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone, which might look familiar for those who have seen all three of Francis Ford Coppola‘s adaptations of Mario Puzo’s novel.
