1.) Our first look at Tom Hardy in Mad Max: Fury Road surfaced yesterday after Tom Hardy gave out signed pics to the crew on the last day of shooting. The film sees Hardy take over the role Mel Gibson made famous in a story that takes place shortly after the events of Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. Though filming wrapped on Monday, an official release date still hasn’t been set. Charlize Theron, Zoe Kravitz, Nicholas Hoult and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley help round out the cast for director George Miller. [AICN]
2.) Ridley Scott will direct Showtime’s pilot for “The Vatican,” which is described as “a provocative contemporary genre thriller about spirituality, power and politics – set against the modern-day political machinations within the Catholic church.” The script was written by Paul Attanasio (Quiz Show, Donnie Brasco), with production set to begin next year. This marks the first time Scott has directed for TV since the 1960s.
3.) Speaking of Scott, Prometheus scribe Damon Lindelof tells Collider he won’t be returning to write a sequel. Lindelof has moved on to write (and produce) several other projects including Star Trek Into Darkness, World War Z and 1952 and admitted he’s “usually very single-minded creatively,” preferring to just focus on one project at a time. He did have some interesting things to say about the proposed sequel, though:
“Ridley [Scott] and I talked at great length during the story process of the first movie about what subsequent movies would be if Prometheus were to be successful. And I think that the movie ended in a very specific way that hinted at, or strongly implied that there were going to be continuing adventures worthy of writing stories.
What those stories would be would not necessarily usurp or transcend the Alien franchise as we saw it because we know that the Nostromo hasn’t come along yet. So the idea was to set up a universe that… Is it a prequel? Okay. If that’s what we want to call it, sure. But the sequel to this movie is not Alien. The sequel to this movie is this other thing.”
4.) B-movie icon Roger Corman will produce new 3D versions of eight Edgar Allan Poe adaptations he directed in the 1950s and ’60s. The plan is to shoot the first one (House of Usher) in 2013, followed by two a year after that on budgets in the $2 million range. Subsequent titles will include The Pit and the Pendulum and The Raven, though the next step is find a 50-something actor to replace Corman’s legendary leading man Vincent Price. [THR]
5.) Vin Diesel is looking to produce and star in Universal’s update of Kojak. Telly Savalas played the bald detective for 5 seasons on the original CBS TV series in the ’70s. Skyfall writers Neal Purvis and Robert Wade are attached to write the new big-screen version. [THR]
