Welcome to The Rundown report (as gathered by Taryn Belle) with Nerd Union for the weekend of July 16th, 2021.
MOVIES
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has been keeping fans updated on the Black Adam production path through his personal Instagram. In the last week, he has posted photos highlighting the final days of shooting – first giving a shout out to the advanced technology being used to captures 960 frames per second (compared to the normal 24 frames per second), then posting a black and white photo taken with the actor’s back to the camera, surveying destruction all around, while pointing out Black Adam’s intricately detailed suit texture.
Matt Shakman of WandaVision has signed a deal to be the director of a new Star Trek film for Paramount. This will be the first Star Trek films written by female screenwriters, with Lindsey Beer and Geneva Robertson-Dworet helming the script, per Deadline. With a strong connection to theater, Shakman has also had a hand in The Great, Fargo, and Game of Thrones – all of those paired stunning visuals with strong dramatic moments, so he seems like a great fit for the Star Trek enterprise.
The movie adaption of the book The People We Hate at the Wedding by Grant Ginder has officially locked in the lead cast members including Allison Janney, Annie Murphy, Ben Platt, and Kristen Bell. According to Digital Spy, the comedy film focuses on: “widowed Donna (Janney) who loves smoking joints, drinking wine and watching House Hunters. She’s forced to reunite with her daughter Alice (Bell), who is stuck in a dead-end job and having an affair with her married boss, and son Paul (Platt), who isn’t a fan of monogamy, to attend the wedding of her daughter Eloise in the English countryside.” I’m assuming Murphy plays Eloise in this mix.
SHOWS & SERIES
The Loki finale dropped this week and has confirmed Season 2 is coming, but apparently director Kate Herron will not be returning. In an interview with Deadline, Herron said “I’m not returning … I always planned to be just on for this, and to be honest, Season 2 wasn’t in the — that’s something that just came out, and I’m so excited. I’m really happy to watch it as a fan next season, but I just think I’m proud of what we did here and I’ve given it my all. I’m working on some other stuff yet to be announced.” I guess the Sacred Timeline truly has branched out!
Deadline has also exclusively announced that Emmy-Nominated director Julie Anne Robinson “has optioned Vanessa Riley’s recently released novel Island Queen to develop for television via her UK-based Longboat Pictures production company, with Bridgerton star Adjoa Andoh attached to executive produce. Island Queen is based on the true story of Dorothy ‘Doll’ Kirwan Thomas, who was born enslaved, bought her freedom and became one of the wealthiest and most powerful landowners in the early 1800s Caribbean.” Here’s to powerful Black women getting more representation in the media!
ACTORS & AWARDS
In light of the recent Emmy nominations announcements, Variety reported on the record breaking representation across categories: “Jonathan Majors and Jurnee Smollett of the now-canceled Lovecraft Country made history as the first two Black leads to be nominated from the same drama series. Pose also joins for achieving the same feat with Billy Porter and Mj Rodriguez … As Megan Briscoe in HBO Max’s The Flight Attendant, Rosie Perez became just the third Latina ever to be recognized in the supporting comedy actress race.” While AAPI nominations are still lacking, Bowen Yang and Phillipa Soo made history as the first Asian actors to be nominated, respectively, for supporting actor in a comedy and supporting actress in limited series.
GAMING
Netflix recently locked in Mike Verdu (who has been the VP of augmented reality and virtual reality over at Facebook) for the role as vice president of game development per Bloomberg.com. Supposedly: “The games will appear alongside current fare as a new programming genre — similar to what Netflix did with documentaries or stand-up specials.” Nerd Union will strive to keep you updated on this venture as more official news is released!
PLATFORMS
The audio-app Clubhouse has added text chatting through a system they’re calling “Backchannel” to answer users’ requests for ways to chat outside of audio conversations. Clubhouse announced this addition through a video on their Twitter, with a caption that jokes: “After we unintentionally leaked their feature 5 times, here’s our beloved engineering team introducing the new Clubhouse Backchannel”. The feature allows for links but no images or video sharing at this time.
MERCH
Tag Heuer watches are collaborating with Nintendo to release a special Super Mario version of its Connected smartwatch. It was released July 15th and is priced at $2,150 – which apparently is on par with the price tag for Connected smartwatches according to Engadget. Sounds Super pricey, Bro …
THEME PARKS
As a former Attractions Cast Member at Disney California Adventure, I had REALLY hoped that the pandemic would be the death of FastPass since it negatively impacts the typical time in lines for Attractions per the need for a merging system to weave in FastPass guests with Stand-By guests. Any Attraction that offers FastPass automatically doubles the wait time for those standing by in the regular queuing line and that can get frustrating for Cast Members and guests alike. But alas, Disneyland Paris (and soon Disney World) are bringing back FastPass in the worst possible way – introducing a Pay-Per-Ride pass system called “Premier Access” with a paired virtual free “Standby Pass” for those who don’t want to pay and it’s just causing chaos. Photos posted by Twitter user PixieDust show that the Standby Pass is actually causing massive crowding and backups in the normal queues because Cast have to now visually check every guest’s pass designation. As someone who has been angrily yelled at when managing Merge lines in the past, I BEG Disney to just let the natural flow of regular lines be the standard. PLEASE.
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