Venom 2 Lands MCU Actor Andy Serkis to Direct – Did You Hear? Week of August 9th, 2019

Did You Hear? is a weekly examination of headlines in the entertainment industry and a take on what they could mean for the future of the industry and (often), the little geeky bubble that we occupy.

Andy Serkis to Direct Venom 2

On Monday The Hollywood Reporter broke the news that Lord of the Rings and Black Panther alumni and Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle director Andy Serkis has landed the job of directing the second installment in Sony Pictures’ Venom franchise.

I’m going to be honest here, I never thought I would speak nor write the word “Venom franchise”. What a world we live in!

While Sony has yet to comment, Serkis made this statement on his Instagram on Monday following the news breaking:

https://www.instagram.com/p/B0zBaSjB75t/

Serkis entered the scene with a big bang as Gollum and has managed to carve out success in motion capture, effects, acting, directing, and creating. While he doesn’t hold the accolades he deserves for the incredible work and innovation he has brought to the filmmaking world, now that it has happened, it felt like an inevitability that he would wind up in charge of a comic book movie.

The news is not in the least bit ironic given the fact that Marvel Studios made the same mistake with his character, Ulysses Klaue, which they have made with several of their more excellent villains and killed in during the events of Black Panther, that Serkis jumped right over to Sony in order to keep playing in the same sandbox.

Kevin Conroy & Cress Williams to Appear in Crisis

There were 100,000 DCTV Crisis on Infinite Earths announcements which came out ofSan Diego Comic-Con (and, of course, I wrote about in the Did You Hear? SDCC post mortem), but the news hasn’t stopped there. At the CW TCA panel it was announced that Batman: the Animated Series star Kevin Conroy would be playing a version (which version!?), of Bruce Wayne.

Below is a piece of fanart of Conroy as Wayne by artist which went viral on Instagram hours after the news broke:

https://www.instagram.com/p/B0yW2_bnLXh/

Please note the use of the name “Bruce Wayne” as opposed to “Batman”. All this means is Conroy will not be appearing in a suit or a cowl, but fans imaginations have already exploding with the potential Batman Beyond overtures.

Last Saturday Black Lightning star Cress Williams took to his personal Instagram account to share a screenshot from a notorious rumour mill website and confirm that he would be appearing as part of the Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover as well:

https://www.instagram.com/p/B0tZlDFJpNl/?utm_source=ig_embed

Williams’ words do not confirm whether or not he will be appearing as Black Lightning or Jefferson Pierce and don’t seem to imply that any of his fellow Freeland Superheroes will be showing up alongside the star when he makes his debut in the Arrowverse.

My bet? During season 3 of Black Lightning we’ll see some red skies (in the style of the original Crisis on Infinite Earths tie-in comic book issues), Black Lightning will appear in one or more episodes of the crossover event, then blip back to his universe where the matter will never be spoken of again.

Regardless, my little geek heart is exploding with excitement at these two additions to the upcoming crossover episodes!

Stranger Comics Heads to HBO & Kickstarter

Earlier this year it was announced in Deadline that Stranger Comics’ Asunda was in development as a fantasy epic at HBO in the wake of Game of Thrones coming to an end and now Stranger Comics is heading back to Kickstarter for a third installment of their Untamed series.

THE UNTAMED: Still a Fool, the third installment in the series. The book returns the team of Sebastian A. Jones, Darrell May, and Joshua Cozine with artist Peter Bergting (Lord of the Rings) and cover artists Hyoung Taek Nam (The Last of Us) and Jae Lee (The Dark Tower).

Stranger Comics hosts an annual Kickstarter campaign and Untamed will go live at this link on August 28th (the birthday of company founder Sebastian A. Jones.

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