February 14, 2024

Disney Sequels Galore, Jurassic Movie Has No Director, and the Oscars Gets a New Category

1 hour

Welcome to Multiverse News, Your source for Information about all your favorite fictional universes.

The 2024 Super Bowl was the most-watched program in American television history with 123.4 million viewers.

The House of Mouse let loose several bits of exciting news after their quarterly earnings call on February 7. Animation fans were surprised with the release of a teaser trailer for Moana 2, which will be in theaters in November. Bob Iger also announced that Zootopia 2 will release in 2025 and Frozen 3 and Toy Story 5 will drop in 2026. Fans of the recent Percy Jackson and the Olympians series officially received the news that season two has been greenlit. Disney is investing $1.5 billion Epic Games - known best for Fortnite. CEO Bob Iger explained that the goal is to create a gaming universe that features beloved characters from Disney’s hottest franchises such as Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar, and more. And last - but never least - it was announced that Taylor Swift’s concert film The Eras Tour will stream exclusively on Disney+ beginning March 15.Last week we discussed the seemingly-rushed new Jurassic World movie, which had announced that its director would be David Leitch. But talks between Universal and Leith fell through and the director is no longer attached to the project.

In a surprising move, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences governing board announced a new category that will first be given away in 2026 - Best Achievement in Casting. It’s been nearly 25 years since a new category was announced - the last one being Best Animated Feature Film in 2001. A joint statement from the Academy Casting Director Branch governors expressed appreciation for the acknowledgment and recognition for casting directors. Official rules will be announced in April 2025 and films of that year will be the first ones considered for the award.

Paramount released the first trailer for its limited series and Sonic the Hedgehog spin-off, Knuckles, starring Idris Elba in the lead voice acting role. The six episode show will debut on Paramount+ on April 26.

This March, Marvel Comics will release a prelude comic for the X-Men ‘97 animated show. The first issue features a wraparound cover by Russell Dauterman. The limited series will be four issues long.

Celine Song is reuniting with A24 for her second feature film following her Best Picture directorial debut Past Lives. The new film, titled Materialists, is described as a romantic comedy with Dakota Johnson, Pedro Pascal, and Chris Evans in early talks to star.

Sony is shutting down its Funimation app and moving subscribers over to Crunchyroll, but the move does not include their already purchased content.

Seven Star Wars comics will feature variant covers featuring some of the women of the galaxy far, far away for Women’s History Month in March.

HBO is developing an Aegon’s Conquest Game of Thrones series, which will serve as a prequel to House of the Dragon. Mattson Tomlin, who wrote parts of Matt Reeves’ The Batman and is co-writing the upcoming sequel, will write the series.

Michael Chaves, who has directed previous installments in The Conjuring franchise, including 2021’s The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It and The Nun II is in negotiations to direct what is being eyed as the fourth and final outing in the franchise currently under the working titled The Conjuring 4.

After being saved from a tax break death at Warner Bros., the John Cena and Lana Condor movie, Coyote Vs Acme is officially being shelved forever. Although Warner Brothers did attempt to shop the film to other studios including Netflix, Amazon, and Paramount, their asking price of between $75 and $80 million for the film was too high to attract a buyer.

Wicked author Gregory Maguire will release a new prequel titled Elphie: A Wicked Childhood on October 1. Maguire has written eight Oz-inspired books.

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