Following our story about possible follow-ups to World War Z and Pacific Rim we’re about ready to start a section called This Week in Sequel News.
Read on to learn more about the official name and release date for the fourth Jurassic Park movie, a rough go for Pirates of The Caribbean, a reboot of the biblically-themed Left Behind, and a small-screen re-imagining of American Psycho.
A New Jurassic World
Now we have a name and a (delayed) time to put with the rumors about what the fourth version of Jurassic Park will actually look like. With a just-announced title, Jurassic World, the movie was actually pushed back from 2014 to a June 12, 2015, opening.
But many JP fans believe naming the film Jurassic World strengthens the rumors that the film returns to Isla Nubar, the site of the original Jurassic Park, and presents a story in which the dinosaur theme park is actually up and running. Expect to see at least one new dinosaur in a movie directed by the film’s co-writer Colin Treveorrow and produced by Steven Speilberg, who, of course, directed the first two installments.
The first Jurassic movie hit screens in 1993, with the next two coming in 1997 and 2001. A delay into 2015 gives us quite the wait—and plenty of time for anything to have happened plot-wise—in film four.
Rough Waters for Pirates
Johnny Depp fans The Lone Ranger one more time because Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, the fifth appearance for Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow, has definitely missed its target date of 2015 and now will shoot for a summer 2016 release, according to producer Jerry Bruckheimer’s conversation with the Hollywood Reporter.
“We have an outline everyone loves but the script is not done,” he says. “We want a script that everyone’s signed off on and a budget that everyone’s signed off on.
The first Pirates movie debuted 2003, with the next three released in 2006, 2007 and 2011 — all from Disney. Joachim Ronning and Espen Sandberg will co-direct the new installment in the fifth highest-grossing franchise of all time. While we really want to see Orlando Bloom return for movie number five, we wish The Interceptor could somehow come back to life.
Left Behind Looks Forward
With over 65 million copies of the Left Behind 16-book series sold, a series that stems from events immediately following the biblical rapture, the first attempt at a movie series never fully took off with Kirk Cameron as the star in 2001. But now we have a full Hollywood reboot with Nicolas Cage, Chad Michael Murray, Cassi Thomson, Nicky Whelan, Quinton Aaron, Jordin Sparks and, now, Lea Thompson signed on. The movie, with stuntman-turned-director Vic Armstong at the helm, will be released in 2014 .
It seems the authors of the books, Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHaye books, already have some issues with the project — LaHaye has called the script “probably the worst … I have ever read, though he did allow that it had ”a lot of intrigue.”
American Pyscho coming to TV?
So maybe the 2000 Christian Bale movie won’t get a big-screen remake, but FX will give the story a modern-day treatment as a small-screen series.
G.I. Joe Has a Writer
We already knew this money-making franchise was coming back for a third installment, but news out of the G.I. Joe 3 camp has Snow White and the Huntsman writer, Evan Daugherty, signing on to give us an actual story. That always proves helpful in producing a film.