‘Avatar 3’ Will Not Be Titled ‘Avatar: The Seed Bearer’ Despite It Once Being Considered; Producer Jon Landau Says ‘That’s Getting Changed’ on Wikipedia

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Zack Snyder has spent the last several years attempting to launch new IP for Netflix, be it his action zombie epic “Army of the Dead” or his new space opera franchise “Rebel Moon,” but the 57-year-old filmmaker is better known for putting his stamp on famed IP, from “Watchmen” to “Man of Steel,” “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” and “Justice League.” Would he ever return to tackling a pre-existing franchise? “I mean, like, how much IP is there?” Snyder recently said in an interview with The Atlantic before thinking of at least one bit of IP he might like to tackle one day. “It’d be cool to see, like, 20-year-old James Bond,” Snyder said.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Taraji P. Henson revealed during a recent SAG-AFTRA conversation moderated by Variety’s Angelique Jackson that she fired members of her team after her career hit a wall despite the global success of “Empire,” the Fox musical drama series that she starred on for six seasons from 2015 to 2020. Henson played the outspoken and ferocious Cookie Lyon, which won her a Golden Globe and earned her two Emmy nominations.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Jason Momoa cast doubt on his future as Aquaman in a recent interview with Entertainment Tonight, and now DC Studios boss Peter Safran has weighed in by telling The Independent: “If it’s the end of the journey, fine. If it goes on, that’s also fine.” Both Momoa and Safran are waiting to see how big of an audience “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” pulls in before definitively calling it the actor’s swan song as the superhero. The original “Aquaman” movie grossed $1 billion to become the highest grossing DCEU film.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” star Leah Jeffries recently spoke to Essence magazine about how her casting as Annabeth Chase in the new Disney+ series initially generated backlash from some toxic fans. Racist trolls were upset that a Black actor was cast as a character described in the books as a blonde white girl. “The White Lotus” actor Alexandra Daddario played Annabeth in Fox’s “Percy Jackson” film adaptations.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Quentin Tarantino fans were sent into a frenzy in late 2017 after it was announced that Paramount and “Star Trek” producer J.J. Abrams had accepted Tarantino’s pitch for a new “Star Trek” movie and were working with “The Revenant” screenwriter Mark L. Smith to iron out the script.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director “Avatar: The Last Airbender” creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino spent two years developing a live-action adaptation of the animated classic for Netflix before they shocked fans by announcing their exit from the project due to creative differences. The decision left Albert Kim, best known as a writer on “Pantheon” and an executive producer on “Sleepy Hollow,” as the live-action series’ showrunner without the support of the franchise’s original visionaries.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director As 2023 draws to a close, Christopher Nolan is feeling pretty good about the state of the movie business. That shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise considering “Oppenheimer” pulled in a remarkable $954 million at the box office this year, beating every superhero movie and several major Hollywood tentpoles, like “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.” Audiences turning out in droves for a three-hour, R-rated and incredibly dense biographical drama as if it were a major action movie blockbuster has Nolan quite optimistic about the future. “I’ve just made a three-hour film about Robert Oppenheimer which is R-rated and half in black-and-white – and it made a billion dollars.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Charlie Hunnam revealed to Entertainment Tonight while promoting his new film “Rebel Moon” that he was heavily considered to play Anakin Skywalker in George Lucas’ “Star Wars” prequel trilogy. While child actor Jake Lloyd played Anakin in 1999’s “The Phantom Menace,” a time jump for 2002’s “Attack of the Clones” and 2005’s “Revenge of the Sith” required Lucas to cast an older actor as Anakin. Hayden Christiansen won the part, but Hunnam said he also met Lucas in person to discuss the role.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director George Clooney turned up as Bruce Wayne in the final moments of “The Flash,” but in no way does that mean he’s interested in playing Batman again. Speaking to Entertainment Tonight while promoting his latest directorial effort “The Boys in the Boat,” Clooney said the chances of him playing Batman again are less than slim to none. “I do not think there’s enough drugs in the world for me to go back,” Clooney said bluntly.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director “Stranger Things” creators Matt and Ross Duffer are shutting down at least one fan theory about the upcoming ending to their blockbuster Netflix series. On the red carpet for the new “Stranger Things” play in London, the duo went on record to Metro saying the series will not end with a reveal that all the events in the Upside Down were just a dream. One fan theory about the “Stranger Things” ending alleges all the events on screen during the show’s run were actually just the main characters playing an elaborate and very long game of Dungeons and Dragons, a favorite among the characters since the show’s first season.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Jason Momoa is no longer feeling too optimistic about playing Aquaman in the future. The actor is reprising his superhero role in Warner Bros.’ upcoming “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom,” which might be Momoa’s swan song as the character on the big screen. Momoa was cast as Aquaman in the DC Universe, playing the character in “Justice League” and “Aquaman,” but the property is now being rebooted by new DC Studios bosses James Gunn and Peter Safran.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director With “Barbie” now available to stream on Max, director and co-writer Greta Gerwig hit the late night press circuit and revealed on “The Late Show” one of the wildest ideas Ryan Gosling wanted to execute in the film as Ken. One of the character’s most memorable looks in the blockbuster comedy is a white mink coat. According to Gerwig, Gosling pitched her on having Ken dance with and fight the mink coat during the “I’m Just Ken” dream ballet.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Timothée Chalamet was supposed to cameo in Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” movie alongside their “Lady Bird” and “Little Women” star Saoirse Ronan, but he never found out what the director had planned for her former collaborators. Scheduling conflicts prevented Ronan and Chalamet from appearing in “Barbie,” which became Warner Bros.’ top-grossing film in history and the biggest movie of 2023 with $1.4 billion in box office sales. “There was an idea for Saoirse Ronan and I to do a cameo in it,” Chalamet said during a recent interview on “The Tonight Show.” “I don’t know what the cameo would’ve been.

Todd Gilchrist editor Even among James Cameron’s epic and frequently arduous productions, from “Titanic’s” nine months of filming to the three years spent on “Avatar: The Way of Water,” “The Abyss” was particularly ambitious — and difficult: The 1989 thriller was shot almost entirely underwater, requiring its crew and cast to learn how to shoot, and act, while using diving equipment with which many of them were completely unfamiliar. “You show up to do a diving movie, you’re going to have to dive,” says Cameron in a new clip from bonus features accompanying the film’s digital release on Tuesday.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Timothée Chalamet was quoted in a recent interview with People magazine saying that his upcoming musical “Wonka” is his mother’s favorite Timothée Chalamet movie. It turns out that’s not the case. Appearing on “Good Morning America,” the Oscar-nominated actor revealed his mom, Nicole Flender, actually called him after the People interview ran in order to correct him.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Anne Hathaway appeared on the latest “Happy Sad Confused” podcast and called it “lucky” that her iteration of the “Barbie” movie never got off the ground considering the phenomenon that Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” became over the summer. Back in July 2017, Hathaway was announced as the star of Sony’s “Barbie” movie. Comedian Amy Schumer was originally cast, but Hathaway took over the role after Schumer departed.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director It’s impossible to imagine “The Devil Wears Prada” without Meryl Streep‘s icy, Oscar-nominated performance as Miranda Priestly, but it turns out there was initial resistance to casting the acting icon in the 2006 classic. During a recent appearance on the “Hollywood Gold” podcast, producer Wendy Finerman revealed Streep was almost passed over for the role because some people thought “she has never been funny a day in her life.” “Meryl, people thought we were crazy,” Finerman said.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Timothée Chalamet admitted to GamesRadar+ that he originally worried “Wonka” might be a “cynical money grab” given Hollywood studios’ recent trend of rebooting every bit of IP it possibly can. Chalamet was offered the chance to lead the film, which is a musical prequel that tells the story of how Willy Wonka became a world famous chocolatier. “Like many people, when there are remakes, I feel very protective over the original character and versions you love,” Chalamet said.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Angelina Jolie told The Wall Street Journal Magazine that she probably would not become an actor if she was just starting out in the industry in 2023. She’d consider acting on the stage, perhaps, but certainly not a life and career in Hollywood. “I wouldn’t be an actress today,” the Oscar winner said.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Margot Robbie revealed to Cillian Murphy during a conversation for Variety’s “Actors on Actors,” presented by “AIR,” that she got a call from “Oppenheimer” producer Charles Roven in which he asked her to change the “Barbie” release date so that it wouldn’t open on the same day as Christopher Nolan’s atomic bomb epic. Roven also produced Nolan’s “Dark Knight” trilogy and worked with Robbie on James Gunn’s “The Suicide Squad.” “One of your producers, Chuck Roven, called me, because we worked together on some other projects,” Robbie said. “And he was like, ‘I think you guys should move your date.’ And I was like, ‘We’re not moving our date.