Castium Revelio: Skeksis and Gelflings and the Flash, Oh My!

Could there be a better way to kick off this week's Casting News than with a little fan art featuring Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) as Wolverine? While a reboot of the X-Men franchise and Radcliffe stepping into Logan's claws are both just items on some fans' wish lists for now, the actor behind our favorite boy wizard continues to be mentioned in the conversation, prompting fantasy art like that below, by digital artist Erathrim.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don't be unfair to yourself, Mr. Potter. I think you have the potential. #danielradcliffe #wolverine #xmen #logan #avengers #erathrim

A post shared by Erathrim (@erathrim20) on Feb 22, 2019 at 6:25am PST

 

As an added bonus, check out Erathrim's interpretation of Robert Pattinson (Cedric Diggory) as Batman!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Robert Pattinson as Batman! Robert is really talented actor. I believe he will be the best. Can't wait to see him as Batman. #robertpattinson #batman #brucewayne #patman #battinson #erathrim

A post shared by Erathrim (@erathrim20) on Jun 10, 2019 at 7:00am PDT

 

Summer is festival season, and Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley) was spotted by the Irish Examiner enjoying Glastonbury last weekend alongside fellow actors, below from left, Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out), Kyle Soller (Poldark), Will Poulter (Black Mirror: Bandersnatch), Jacob Anderson (Game of Thrones), Edward Bluemel (Killing Eve), and an unnamed friend.

Tom Felton's (Draco Malfoy) new film, Ophelia, opened in theaters Friday, and the actor shared a few posts on Instagram in anticipation of the release. First, take a look at Felton in his role as Laertes, Ophelia's brother.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ophelia - June 28th #opheliamovie

A post shared by Tom Felton (@t22felton) on Jun 28, 2019 at 12:02pm PDT

 

And next, sit back and enjoy a bit of swashbuckling as Felton prepared for a sword fighting scene. We're a bit disappointed now that this sort of dueling wasn't an option in the Potter films. "Hello. My name is Draco Malfoy. You disgraced my father; prepare to die."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Swording for #opheliamovie

A post shared by Tom Felton (@t22felton) on Jun 26, 2019 at 3:33pm PDT

 

Meanwhile, People spoke with Felton's Ophelia costar, Daisy Ridley, recently, who admitted to being starstruck as a Potter fan but also had a little advice for Felton: Lay off the junk food.

 

MuggleNet let you know last month about Evanna Lynch's new play, Games for Lovers, and BroadwayWorld has released a first-look image of the cast, including Lynch and costars Calum Callaghan (Black Mirror), Tessie Orange-Turner (Casualty), and Billy Postlethwaite (Chernobyl). Games for Lovers will run July 12–August 25 at the Vaults beneath Waterloo Station in London, and you can purchase tickets here.

We could not be more hyperactively excited about The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance if we were Fizzgig himself, and as the new Netflix series' August 30 premiere date approaches, Netflix has released a series of portraits that show us which characters the six wizarding world alumni involved will be portraying. Jason Isaacs (Lucius Malfoy), Helena Bonham Carter (Bellatrix Lestrange), Toby Jones (voice of Dobby), Ralph Ineson (Amycus Carrow), Ólafur Darri Ólafsson (Skender, Fantastic Beasts), and Natalie Dormer (narrator of the Harry Potter: A History of Magic audiobook) all have lent their voices to the series, and you can check out their character portraits in the gallery below. Age of Resistance is scheduled for an August 30 release.

Bonham Carter will also be joining Jim Broadbent (Horace Slughorn), David Tennant (Barty Crouch Jr.), and several other celebrities in recording an album to help raise funds for disadvantaged children in the UK through the BBC's Children in Need charity. Each actor will select a song that holds personal significance, and an hour-long show providing a glimpse into the recording process will air on BBC One sometime prior to its November 15 Children in Need appeal program. You can see Broadbent and Bonham Carter below with some of their fellow singers.

 

Bonham Carter and Fiona Shaw (Petunia Dursley) have additionally signed on to a project we let you know about in February: Enola Holmes, the film adaptation of the book series by Nancy Springer about the younger sister of Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes. The Hollywood Reporter says Bonham Carter will portray Enola's (Millie Bobby Brown) mother, while Shaw's role is as yet unknown. The movie is scheduled for a 2020 release, and its screenplay was written by Jack Thorne (writer, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child).

Shaw fans will also want to peruse the actress's letters to herself in the most recent edition of the Big Issues. In it, she addresses such topics as teen anxiety, Alan Rickman's (Severus Snape) influence on her life and career, what would most surprise her younger self, and her sexuality. You can read the full piece here.

I wasn't in any way gay until I was. One goes on developing. As a teenager, I was very modest in my romantic life. I had this wonderful boyfriend, then another, then later, I became gay. It was a shock. I was full of self-hatred and thought I would come back into the fold shortly. But I just didn't. I would tell my younger self you must be very gentle on yourself; you are not in control of those aspects of yourself, and you mustn't try to be.

Isaacs, meanwhile, as we told you in April, voices his Star Trek character, Captain Gabriel Lorca, in the Star Trek Online: Rise of Discovery video game, and ComicBook.com says the game has now been released on Xbox One and PlayStation 4. Rise of Discovery allows you to travel back in time to one month after the Battle at the Binary Stars and board the USS Buran, where you'll encounter Lorca.

Peaky Blinders fans don't have much longer to wait for the premiere of Season 5, and for a lucky few, that wait will be cut down to about two weeks. LADbible reports a special world premiere of Season 5 is scheduled for July 18 at Birmingham Town Hall in Birmingham, England. Tickets will be awarded from a lottery draw, and fans can enter now through July 10 by clicking here. The show stars Helen McCrory (Narcissa Malfoy) as Aunt Polly, and you can also catch a glimpse of the new season in the short trailer below, which was released to promote the series' boxed set.

 

 

 

 

McCrory is also among 842 new invitees to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Also invited to join the Academy were Gemma Jones (Poppy Pomfrey), Peter Mullan (Corban Yaxley), and Gemma Chan (Madam Ya Zhou, Fantastic Beasts).

As we let you know in June, Ralph Fiennes (Lord Voldemort) was honored Monday at Filmfest München in Germany with a CineMerit Award, and People shared a photo of the actor posing on the red carpet prior to making his way into the CineMerit Gala.

Meanwhile, on the Bond 25 front, Daniel Craig appears to be in one piece, and filming is finally moving forward at a much-smoother-than-has-been-typical pace. As proof, the official 007 YouTube account posted a little behind-the-scenes look at the action this week.

 

 

 

 

Back in March, we gave you a glimpse of James Phelps (Fred Weasley) in his role as Tanion in Cadia: The World Within, and the Columbus Dispatch reports the film will have a pair of screenings next week in Ohio. The first screening will be held July 12 at Capital University's Mees Hall in Bexley, Ohio, and tickets can be purchased here. The second will be July 13 at the Wapa Theatre in Wapakoneta, Ohio, and you can pick up tickets here.

 

Killers Anonymous, starring Gary Oldman (Sirius Black) as aptly named character the Man, is now in theaters, but seeing as the movie industry likes to plan ahead these days, it's also already available on demand and has a projected Blu-ray release date of August 27. The disc is already available for preorder in the United Kingdom, and you can purchase it on Amazon. We'll let you know when it becomes available for preorder in the United States!

Meanwhile, Oldman's son, Alfie Oldman, who's made a name for himself behind the scenes of several films, stepped in front of the camera for the first time recently in a short student film titled Compos Mentis. You can check out Alfie as Dr. Hill below!

 

 

Timothy Spall's (Peter Pettigrew) latest film, Mrs Lowry & Son, finally made its world premiere last week at the closing gala of the Edinburgh International Film Festival, and the National reports the actor says it was no coincidence that he's now played two major British artists in L.S. Lowry and J.M.W. Turner, whom he portrayed in 2014's Mr Turner.

I'm very interested by artists. I've always done a little bit of mad drawing and art. For Turner, I learnt how to paint for two years in preparation for that. But I've always had a slight... there's been a parallel universe which I would have been maybe a painter in or some kind of pictorial artist, perhaps.

Mrs Lowry & Son is scheduled for an August 30 release in theaters in the UK, and Spall said he gained new insight into the artist's complicated relationship with his mother through the script.

It was a revelation to me because I didn't realise how important and how close he was to his mother, and how she was both the motivation and, seemingly, the barrier between him actually doing what he did. This film is, in a sense, an investigation of that dynamic - how somebody was obsessed and devoted to painting a subject matter, in a sense, for the one person who he loved the most, who happened to take every opportunity she could in letting him know how much she hated his paintings.

Believe it or not, it's been 20 years since the release of Wild Wild West, and the film's director, Barry Sonnenfeld, sat down last week with Forbes to discuss the picture and its cast, which included Sir Kenneth Branagh (Gilderoy Lockhart) in the role of insane Confederate scientist Dr. Arliss Loveless. We've also included a photo of Branagh in the role below because let's be serious... it was a good look for him.

Kenneth Branagh [came into the table read] not only knowing his parts perfectly but came in in hair and makeup. He had that trident beard that's in the movie, and at the end of the table read, the head of production at Warner Bros. came up to me and said, 'Should we get rid of Kenneth Branagh and hire this other guy to play Dr. Loveless? He's so good!' And I said, 'That is Kenneth Branagh.' But because he was in hair, makeup, and wardrobe, the head of production didn't even know it was Kenneth because he spoke in a southern accent and everything. He was a real trooper; he was always in that wheelchair, and he had to get into it all the time, so there was a lot of enjoyable stuff.

Christopher Nolan's impending epic, Tenet, which stars Branagh, Pattinson, and Clémence Poésy (Fleur Delacour), is coming up on one year until its July 17, 2020, release, and filming is underway, with a few photos of Pattinson and costar John David Washington (BlacKkKlansman) surfacing this week on Twitter.

 

Their costumes are giving me Inception/Memento vibes 👀👀 #Tenet pic.twitter.com/GnxsXM9qQg

— Aneela ✨ (@Leviosalfc) June 29, 2019

 

A potential movie about Captain Matthew Flinders, the English navigator and cartographer who identified Australia as a continent, is in the works, and Spalding Today says Tropikana Studios already has a few actors in mind for the lead role. Among them is Domhnall Gleeson (Bill Weasley). We'll keep you posted as that project develops!

The Long Night, Blood Moon... call it whatever the heck you like, filming has officially begun in Northern Ireland on the anticipated prequel to Game of Thrones, starring Miranda Richardson (Rita Skeeter), Jamie Campbell Bower (young Gellert Grindelwald), and Toby Regbo (young Albus Dumbledore). The fandom seems to be leaning more toward Blood Moon now after a photo surfaced on Watchers on the Wall showing a shot of the title page of a production sheet. More covert photos were also provided to the site, including one the photographer speculates could be of Regbo... or any other random guy with a ponytail, since we totally can't see his face.

In other GoT prequel news, HN Entertainment says David Allday has been announced as the supervising art director on the series. Allday was the senior art director for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

Richardson, meanwhile, will also be making her Royal Opera Debut this month in Donizetti's La Fille du régiment, Opera Wire says. Richardson will be performing in the speaking role of the Duchesse de Crakentorp in the July 8--20 engagement, and you can pick up tickets here.

Warwick Davis (Griphook/Filius Flitwick) is, without doubt, one of the most caring, generous, and busy men in the film industry, and the actor recently lent his support to yet another charity event, appearing at the Elton Furze Golf Club in Peterborough, England, for a day of golf and fundraising for the Young People's Counselling Service.

 

 

 

Davis and his wife, Sammy, also celebrated their 28th wedding anniversary last week, and Davis shared a touching tribute to the love of his life on Twitter.

 

Happy 28th Wedding Anniversary to my bestest friend & soulmate, @SammyDDavis. Thank you for the fun, happiness & adventure, the warmth & love. My life is perfect with you & I cherish every moment. Thank you for all you do for me & the support you give. Love always & forever. ❤️ pic.twitter.com/jCmpXJH3oW

— Warwick Davis (@WarwickADavis) June 29, 2019

We let you know last month that Netflix's The Witcher, starring Anna Shaffer (Romilda Vane) as Triss Merigold, is scheduled for release in the latter third of 2019, and the series' official poster was released this week. It features Henry Cavill (Superman) in his role as Geralt of Rivia, and you can check it out below!

 

 

 

Bill Nighy (Rufus Scrimgeour) has been spending extensive time in Broken Hill, Australia, of late, filming Buckley's Chance, the tale of the relationship between a boy, Ridley (Milan Burch), and a dingo. The actor told ABC News last week that he has subsequently fallen in love with the Outback.

I've never really worked in the desert before, and the thing I like about my job - one of the things - is that you seem to arrive in places that you know you would never probably have arrived at under your own steam. I really like Broken Hill. When I walk home at night and I get passed by one car every 14 minutes, I could get used to that; it's kind of thrilling. I love the light, too. The sky here is endlessly fascinating. I mean, who needs TV?

Nighy will portray Spencer, Ridley's grandfather, in the movie and also said the prospect of adopting an Aussie accent in front of a cast and crew comprising predominantly Australians "gave me some sleepless nights. Out of the crew, nobody laughed... or not in the wrong places, anyway." No word on when Buckley's Chance will be released, but we'll keep you posted!

While we all love John Cleese as Gryffindor House's resident ghost, Nearly Headless Nick, we knew him well before that as a member of iconic comedy troupe Monty Python's Flying Circus, and Python will be celebrating something completely different this fall: its 50th anniversary! The Irish Times reports a month-long slate of activities is planned, beginning September 1, to mark the occasion. The celebration, titled "It's... Monty Python at 50," will be curated by BFI Southbank, London, which will offer a variety of film and television screenings, oddities, and curios. Official Monty Python books will also receive 50th-anniversary editions, and the five remaining Pythons - Cleese, Eric Idle, Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam, and Terry Jones - will stage a semi-hostile-but-probably-just-ridiculous takeover of the BBC.

The group said in a statement that "extreme silliness seems more relevant now than it ever was," and we couldn't agree more. In addition to never-before-released material on BBC Radio 4 and archival footage from BBC2, a Guinness world record attempt is slated for October 5, which aims to give the world the largest-ever gathering of people dressed as Gumbys. Silly persons interested in participating are asked to sign up here.

Guy Henry (Pius Thicknesse), who portrayed Governor Tarkin in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, will be on hand this month at London Film and Comic Con. Henry will be appearing Sunday, July 28 only, and tickets are available here

Present Laughter, starring Sophie Thompson (Mafalda Hopkirk) and Suzie Toase (Alecto Carrow), celebrated its opening night last week at the Old Vic in London, and new photos have been released of some of the cast both onstage and backstage. You can check out a gallery below. The play runs through August 10, and tickets are available here.

MuggleNet gave you the lowdown in June on Simon McBurney's (voice of Kreacher) new Amazon Prime series, Carnival Row - starring Orlando Bloom (The Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean) and Cara Delevingne (Paper Towns, Suicide Squad) - and Amazon has released a new teaser trailer. This thing looks positively steampunk gorgeous, and we can't wait for its August 30 premiere to arrive!

 

 

A new, expanded soundtrack for the 1982 film Monsignor features new cues and previously unheard sequences by the movie's composer, John Williams (composer of the first three Harry Potter film scores). The unheard music is now included on the soundtrack, and CDs are available for purchase on Amazon.

Tim Burke (Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts visual effects supervisor), as we told you in April, is lending his talents to Disney's upcoming live-action remake of The Little Mermaid, and it was reported this week that Halle Bailey of R&B duo Chloe x Halle will be portraying Ariel in the film. Jacob Tremblay (Pete the Cat) has reportedly been cast as Flounder, and rapper Awkwafina as Scuttle, and Disney is also rumored to be eyeing Melissa McCarthy for Ursula. Production is expected to begin in early 2020.

The voice of Stephen Fry is certainly music to the ears of those who've enjoyed the Harry Potter UK audiobooks, and Fry is now endeavoring to put you to sleep - on purpose. His vocal talents are now featured on a "Sleep Story" included in the Calm app, where Fry will take you on a "mellifluous journey through the lavender fields and the sleepy villages of Provence." You can listen to the story below or via the Calm app, but definitely don't do it if you're behind the wheel!

 

 

The Flash roller coaster has rounded a new bend, and, according to the Hollywood Reporter, Ezra Miller (Credence Barebone) is still on track to play the titular character. Warner Bros. is reportedly in talks now with It director Andy Muschietti to helm the project, which will move forward without the script rewrite Miller offered in May. Instead, Christine Hodson (Bumblebee) has been asked to pen the film.

In other Miller news, the actor is part of makeup company Urban Decay's new Pretty Different campaign, which celebrates "individuality and having pure, unapologetic fun with makeup." The brand says Miller and others involved in the campaign are "a collective of trailblazers who refuse to accept forced standards and instead champion uniqueness." They'll also be attending launches and other events for Urban Decay throughout the remainder of the year, and you can view the brand's campaign video below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pardon our interruption #UrbanDecay

A post shared by Urban Decay Cosmetics (@urbandecaycosmetics) on Jun 27, 2019 at 4:16am PDT

 

Johnny Depp's (Gellert Grindelwald) latest film, The Professor, is coming up for Blu-ray release July 9 and is now available for preorder here.

We've been keeping you up to date on Katherine Waterston's (Tina Goldstein) new movie, The Current Wars, which also stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Nicholas Hoult, and 101 Studios has now released a new trailer for the film, which is slated for an October 4 release.

 

 

 

 

Colin Farrell (Percival Graves) is a strong supporter of Cinemagic Los Angeles, which brings young people from Northern Ireland to Los Angeles, California, for a film academy, and this year's young ambassadors recently enjoyed meeting the actor and hearing about his experiences in the industry.

 

 

 

Deadline Hollywood also reported this week that the US rights to Voyagers, which we told you about in May, have been acquired by Lionsgate. Shooting on the film, which stars Farrell and Depp's daughter, Lily-Rose Depp, is underway in Romania. No release date has been divulged as yet, but we'll keep an eye out.

If you're a fan of Zoë Kravitz (Leta Lestrange), then you've undoubtedly seen photos of the actress this week as the internet celebrated her "second" wedding to fellow actor Karl Glusman, but just in case you missed them, here's a shot of the happy couple heading into their rehearsal dinner in Paris.

The two were initially married in May in a secret civil ceremony but opted to hold a celebratory event for family and friends in France. In addition to Kravitz's mother, Lisa Bonet, father, Lenny Kravitz, and stepfather, Jason Momoa, a host of celebrities were in attendance, including her Fantastic Beasts costar Eddie Redmayne (Newt Scamander), who attended with wife Hannah Bagshawe.

As we told you in May, Jack Thorne (writer) and John Tiffany (director) are teamed up once again for the Thorne-penned play The End of History, and the two sat down with the Guardian recently to talk about both that work and Cursed Child. Thorne calls The End of History the "most personal thing I've ever written" and says that, despite its edginess and description by some as a "brutal" family drama, it's in essence a "love letter" to his parents.

 

As for Cursed Child, Tiffany addressed the topic of whether the play has changed his and Thorne's lives.

It marked the climax of something we'd been working towards as a group of people for 20-odd years. The amount of people that see it is gorgeous, and, of course, it gives a bit of freedom, financially. And creatively, just because it worked.

Tiffany also said he "never allowed us to think about" whether the play would satisfy Harry Potter fans' expectations. Thorne added, "I would have let it overwhelm me. But we were all on the John train, and the John train was just going." And it has a maniacal, deadly trolley witch on it, so good luck hopping off even if you wanted to.

Sonia Friedman (producer), meanwhile, will be producing legendary British playwright Sir Tom Stoppard's new work, Leopoldstadt, and Friedman told the Times Stoppard's response to her "badgering" him to write a new play took her by surprise. "I was amazed when, slightly in a jokey way, he said, 'Can I ask the impossible? Can you get me tickets for 'Harry Potter'? In return, I'll write you a play." Leopoldstadt will run January 25–May 16, 2020, at Wyndham's Theatre on London's West End, and tickets are available for purchase now.

Noma Dumezweni (Hermione Granger, original West End and Broadway runs) is one of several celebrities lending their support to the Malaria Must Die campaign, Xposé reports. You can view the campaign video below and find out more here.

 

 

The actor behind the current Broadway incarnation of Albus Potter, Nicholas Podany, was a guest this week on Broadway.com's #LiveAtFive feature, telling his hosts that being a wizard is something he's always wanted to do.

I've been a fan of the books since I was six years old. I always wanted to be a wizard. When I was 11 years old, the seventh book was released. We read the epilogue, [and] my mom said, 'You can play Albus in the movies.' And here we are.

You can read more and view the full interview with Podany here.

Deadline Hollywood reports Channel 5 has ordered a reboot adaptation of All Creatures Great and Small, based on the book series by James Herriot, and Sir Colin Callender (producer) will serve as an executive producer on the project. The series is expected to begin shooting on location in Yorkshire, England, later this year.

Finally, Cursed Child London has released new production photos from its West End production, and you can check those out in the gallery below. Also, BroadwayWorld has announced that Cursed Child Melbourne will beam a live performance of an exclusive montage direct from the Princess Theatre during the Monday, July 15 broadcast of the 19th annual Helpmann Awards, Australia's version of the Tonys.