Castium Revelio: From San Diego to Duckburg
If you were on the internet last week, you probably saw something about a small event called San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC), held July 20–23. As usual, the reveals at the annual convention did not disappoint, and we can safely say that this week’s Casting News has some exciting updates about our Harry Potter alumni’s projects!
David Tennant (Barty Crouch, Jr.) had his share of activity at SDCC. As part of the cast of the upcoming DuckTales revival, in which he will play Scrooge McDuck, he participated in an interview with Entertainment Weekly:
The show’s creators also revealed during a sneak peek that the character Darkwing Duck will be returning, too!
At Comic-Con, they stayed tight-lipped about how ‘DuckTales’ plans to incorporate the character, how often or how prominently he might appear, and whether we’ll get our first glimpse at him in the one-hour Aug. 12 premiere (a standalone TV movie titled ‘Woo-oo!’) or in the official series itself, which debuts Sept. 23.
Tennant also stopped by BuzzFeed’s GIF booth, in which he could be seen with his sunglasses on.
#DuckTales star David Tennant stopped by @BuzzFeed's GIF booth at #SDCC https://t.co/A6nehLJfAy pic.twitter.com/y3s1NGkGQy
— BuzzFeed Arts & Entertainment (@BuzzFeedEnt) July 21, 2017
(David-Tennant.com provided a full round-up of photos from SDCC on their blog, as well.)
Plus, Tennant has even more on the horizon! He’s joining the cast of the TBS animated series Final Space, along with Ron Perlman (Gnarlack, Fantastic Beasts)! You can watch the cast announcement video here!
Finally, a US release date has been given to Bad Samaritan, a thriller that stars both David Tennant and Robert Sheehan: February 23, 2018!
Robert Sheehan and co-star Carlito Olivero play two valets working at an upmarket restaurant who come up with the perfect scam. While their wealthy clients are socialising, they head off to burgle their houses. However, when they target the home of the psychotic Cale Erendreich, played by David Tennant, they get more than they bargained for. The film also stars Kerry Condon and Hannah Barefoot.
On the subject of another Scrooge, we have a new role for Rhys Ifans (Xenophilius Lovegood)! The actor will be portraying Ebenezer Scrooge in a new production of the Charles Dickens classic A Christmas Carol at the Old Vic. Jack Thorne, the playwright of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, is also writing this adaptation. Playbill reports that performances will begin November 18 and that the show is set to open on November 29.
Doctor Who has a new teaser trailer for its Christmas special, titled Twice Upon a Time. It features the Twelfth Doctor’s encounter with the First Doctor, played by David Bradley (Argus Filch).
The Twelfth Doctor comes face to face with his past in his final adventure… Twice Upon a Time. Coming Christmas, 2017. #DoctorWho pic.twitter.com/bLzAeBuvDF
— Doctor Who (@bbcdoctorwho) July 23, 2017
A trailer for Mr. Mercedes, a new series starring Brendan Gleeson (Alastor “Mad-Eye” Moody), has been released. The show, based on a novel by author Stephen King, showcased its first season at SDCC. Entertainment Weekly also interviewed the show’s creator, David E. Kelley.
In his new series ‘Mr. Mercedes,’ premiering on the AT&T Audience Network on Aug. 9, the producer of ‘The Practice’ and ‘Big Little Lies’ takes on a Stephen King novel about a retired, curmudgeonly Detective Bill Hodges (Brendan Gleeson) and the killer who got away. That madman is Brady Hartsfield (‘Penny Dreadful’’s Harry Treadaway), who plowed a stolen Benz into a crowd of people years before and escaped without a trace.
You can watch the trailer here:
A second season has been ordered for Robbie Coltrane‘s (Rubeus Hagrid) crime series, Robbie Coltrane’s Critical Evidence, which airs on Crime + Investigation (CI) in the UK. World Screen reported the news.
Filming has begun on the 8×1-hour second season of the true-crime series, which follows Coltrane as he unveils the details behind some of the U.K.’s most complex murder investigations. Cases covered in the new season include the disappearance of 38-year-old Suzanne Pilley, whose body has never been found, and the conviction of her ex-lover David Gilroy; the death of Karen Price, whose body was only identified due to groundbreaking facial reconstruction techniques; and the posthumous conviction of Joseph Kappen, 27 years after he murdered three teenage girls in Llandarcy, Wales. From IWC Media, ‘Robbie Coltrane’s Critical Evidence’ launched in fall 2016.
Warner Bros. has gone forward with a new take on Homer’s The Odyssey, and it will be set in space! Deadline Hollywood reports that David Heyman, who produced all eight Harry Potter films (plus Fantastic Beasts and its upcoming sequel), will be a part of this film’s production team, as well. Deadline also notes that this film has the potential to turn into a franchise.
Miriam Margolyes (Professor Sprout) has been in Butler County, Ohio, to film for a new documentary, according to a local news site. Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones, who has been filming with Margolyes, described the actress as “very fun.” We’ll be sure to provide an update on the project once we have more information!
Variety is reporting that a biopic on Civil Rights Movement activist Fannie Lou Hamer is currently in development and that Chris Columbus will produce alongside Gregory Allen Howard. Columbus, who directed the first two Harry Potter films, has his own production company, 1492 Pictures. No casting for the film has been announced yet.
Stephen Fry, who narrated the UK audiobooks of the Harry Potter series, is narrating a film from a team at the University of Leicester about a country squire, Robert Wyndham Ketton-Cremer. The Leicester Mercury reported the news.
The film about the man, the last squire at Felbrigg Hall, has been made to celebrate the National Trust’s Lesbian, Gay Bisexual and Transgender (LGBTQ) heritage. […] The film is being launched today as part of Prejudice & Pride, a programme that explores the LGBTQ heritage at more than 25 places in the National Trust’s care.
Fry is quoted in the piece, expressing why the program is so necessary.
Some have asked why Prejudice & Pride is necessary – why the lives of people who challenged conventional ideas of gender and sexuality should be made public and celebrated in this way.
The answer is quite simple – to do anything less is to suggest that same-sex love and gender diversity is somehow wrong, and keeping these stories hidden only lets prejudice – past and present – go unchallenged.
British Airways has released a new safety video that features a number of stars, including actors Warwick Davis (Professor Flitwick and Griphook) and Jim Broadbent (Professor Slughorn). The director’s cut of the humorous take on emergency preparedness can be seen below:
Actor Ezra Miller (Credence Barebone, Fantastic Beasts), who was at SDCC to promote Justice League, can also be seen in this shot from comedian Chris Hardwick’s Instagram!
(If you’re looking for more on Justice League, you can find that in our earlier post.)
We can’t finish this post without adding that the first round of films set to be shown at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) has been announced! The full list of films can be found on the TIFF website, but they include alumni projects such as Victoria and Abdul, which features Sir Michael Gambon (Albus Dumbledore), and The Children Act, which stars Emma Thompson (Professor Trelawney).
That’s the end of this week’s Casting News, but we’ll be back next week! Be sure to check out Entertainment Weekly‘s official portraits from SDCC, including portraits of David Tennant, David Bradley, and Frank Dillane (Tom Riddle, Half-Blood Prince), which can be found here.
