The presses have been offline for a while thanks to real life, but real life didn’t stop news from happening. Here are a few of the stores we found interesting or exciting while we were sleeping.

Dwayne Johnson has been working on getting a Black Adam movie for just about as long as anyone can remember, seemingly from time immemorial (or at least prior to Man of Steel) and it finally has a release date: 22nd December 2021.

For those of you who don’t know, Black Adam is basically Shazam! but from ancient times, and who went bad. That’s basically the whole pitch. I’m sure the film will make him an anti-hero, and eventually, there’ll be either a team-up or a showdown or one and then the other.

Johnson announced the date on his Instagram.

Nicolas Cage is, love him or hate him, a hard-working actor. Sure, he’s in some bad movies, but when you do as many movies as he does you’re going to get some bad ones. It’s just statistics. Besides, the good performances far outweigh the bad ones.

Anyway, in a stroke of meta genius, he is in talks to play himself in the upcoming film The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent about him trying to get cast in an upcoming movie, having a strained family relationship, and also talking to his younger 1990s self (who berates him for not being a star anymore).

In other words: the most Nicolas Cage movie, maybe ever.

(source: The Hollywood Reporter)

Look, that’s actually the entire story so far. Lord & Miller, filmmakers with a track record of great, hilarious films and series under their belts as both directors and producers, are working with the guy who wrote the original novel The Martian.

There are basically no details other than that it will be science fiction, presumably feature someone solving problems, and also be funny.

That’s ok though because any news of awesomely talented people working together is good news.

(source: Deadline)

Chinatown seems like it’d be a hard movie to recreate or sequel-ize or prequel-ize because it is not only a classic, but because it’s a classic born out of a very specific time, a very specific place, and very specific people in that time and place. It’s been tried before and didn’t work, but since when did that stop anyone?

Enter David Fincher, esteemed director of many amazing things, and Robert Towne, original writer of Chinatown for this latest attempt.

Jack Nicholson is retired so he won’t be involved, he seems pretty set on staying retired. This thing has Fincher directing though, so that’s good enough for me.

(source: Deadline)

In 2001 Michael Peterson, a novelist, was accused of killing his wife. According to him, she died from a fall down the stairs. The police thought he might have beaten her to death and then staged a scene. The story only gets weirder from there and was the subject of a documentary series, The Staircase that ran in 2004, and was later updated with more episodes and was released by Netflix as a 13 episode series in just the last few years.

Is Michael Peterson guilty? Well, maybe we shouldn’t get into that. You can watch that series and decide for yourself.

Anyway, Annapurna TV is now producing a TV series based on the story and Harrison Ford is set to produce and star. That’s a hell of a thing. I don’t think Harrison Ford has ever had a regular part on a TV series before (correct me if I’m wrong!) and he’s honestly pretty right for the part.

No dates or anything yet, in fact, it looks like they don’t even have a buyer for the series yet, but this is exactly the kind of thing that some premium streaming service is going to pick up.

(source: Variety)

The Banker tells the story of two black men, Bernard Garrett Sr. and Joe Morris, who ran a real estate business that helped other black people buy homes and achieve their dreams. Taking place in America’s racist past, they even hired a white guy to be the face of the business. Starring Anthony Mackie, Samuel L Jackson, and Nicholas Hoult it seemed to be an all-around feel-good story, and the kind that awards bodies eat up. Geroge Nolfi (The Adjustment Bureau) directed it, and Apple bought it after it was made.

But during the press tour, the daughters of Bernard Garrett Sr have accused his son, their elder half brother Bernard Garrett Jr. of sexually assaulting them over a period of years.

Garrett Jr. has stepped down as a producer, and Apple has delayed the films release. It was supposed to release today (6 December) but there is no news on when it might happen now as Apple is trying to figure out what to do. Apparently both they, and director Nolfi, were blindsided by this.

The sisters have also claimed that the story has been altered to omit them and their mother from the story, despite them being in Garrett Sr’s life during at least some of the events depicted.

What an absolute clusterfuck. I don’t even have anything pithy or particularly insightful to say, it’s just a huge mess. We obviously believe the sisters and hope they’re able to get some peace at the end of all this.