Michael Mando Reportedly Fired From Apple TV+ Show ‘Sinking Spring’ After Fight: Everything to Know So Far

The cast of “Gladiator 2” just got a huge new name.

What casting news could top Barry Keoghan joining fellow Irish actor Paul Mescal in Ridley Scott‘s upcoming “Gladiator 2“? Deadline has the answer.  Denzel Washington is in final talks to co-star in the sequel.

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor What better way to officially close the door on an exhausting awards season than to look ahead –blindly — to what studios and production companies could bring to the screen in 2023. As Variety‘s awards coverage transitions into the Emmy season, this annual tradition (albeit highly inaccurate due to release shifts and other varying factors) creates some fun and wonder as Cannes looms two months away. One first impression is that the streamers are back with a vengeance with an arsenal of big names and titles aiming to take the trophy from reigning best-picture champ A24 with “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” Apple Original Films has a duo of master auteurs on deck.

It looks like Denzel Washington will be appearing on screen with Paul Mescal!

Angelique Jackson Denzel Washington is in final negotiations to join Ridley Scott’s upcoming “Gladiator” sequel, reteaming after 2007’s “American Gangster.” If the deal closes, the two-time Academy Award winner would join newly minted Oscar nominees Paul Mescal and Barry Keoghan, whose participation in the project broke Thursday. The sequel follows 2000’s blockbuster hit “Gladiator,” which was nominated for 12 Academy Awards and won five, including best picture. It earned $460 million at the box office, and now Scott is returning to direct and produce the sequel. The original “Gladiator” starred Russell Crowe as Maximus Decimus Meridius, a Roman soldier forced into slavery who vows revenge against Commodus, played by Joaquin Phoenix. Since Maximus dies at the end of “Gladiator,” Mescal will play Lucius, the son of Maximus’ lover Lucilla (played by Connie Nielsen), in the sequel. Keoghan is in negotiations to play Emperor Geta.

EXCLUSIVE: Almost 16 years ago Denzel Washington and Ridley Scott wowed audiences with their hit crime drama American Gangster, and now it looks like the the two A-listers are ready to get back together in a big way. Sources tell Deadline that Washington is in final negotiations to co-star in Scott’s sequel to his Oscar Best Picture winner Gladiator for Paramount.

It’s been over 20 years since Ridley Scott rocked the period action film genre with his beloved “Gladiator,” eventually earning Best Picture and Best Actor wins at the Academy Awards in 2001. A long-gestating sequel is finally going in front of cameras this summer, with recent Oscar-nominee Paul Mescal (“Aftersun“) taking the lead role and Scott returning to the director’s chair.

Paul Mescal‘s Gladiator sequel might have another star attached to the cast – Barry Keoghan.

Angelique Jackson Academy Award-nominee Barry Keoghan is circling his next high-profile role, with the actor in negotiations to join Ridley Scott’s untitled “Gladiator” sequel. If the deal closes, Keoghan would join fellow 2023 Academy Award nominee Paul Mescal, who is set to star in the Paramount Pictures film. Keoghan is in negotiations to play Emperor Geta. Paramount Pictures has dated the film for November 22, 2024. Scott returns to direct the film, which follows 2000’s “Gladiator,” which was nominated for 12 Academy Awards, winning five including best picture. David Scarpa is penning the script. Scott will also produce with Michael Pruss via Scott Free and Doug Wick & Lucy Fisher via Red Wagon Entertainment. Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald are executive producing. Also returning from the original film are cinematographer John Mathieson, production designer Arthur Max and costume designer Janty Yates.

Fresh from his Oscar nomination for “The Banshees of Inisherin” and high-profile roles in blockbusters “Eternals” and “The Batman,” Barry Keoghan has joined Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator” sequel, joining Paul Mescal in the currently film. TheWrap has confirmed the casting.Keoghan will play Emperor Geta in the David Scarpa-scripted film; while there was a Roman emperor with the name it’s unclear how directly the movie will draw from actual events.

Barry Keoghan is in negotiations to join the cast of Paramount’s sequel to Gladiator that has Ridley Scott returning to direct and Paul Mescal set to star.

Jeremy Podeswa (Station 11, Game of Thrones) is joining Prime Video’s limited series Blade Runner 2099 to direct the pilot and serve as producing director. He will also serve as executive producer. 

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large “Game of Thrones” alum Jeremy Podeswa has signed on to direct the pilot of Amazon Prime Video’s upcoming limited series “Blade Runner 2099.” Podeswa, most recently the DGA Award-nominated director behind HBO Max’s “Station Eleven,” will also serve as producing director and executive producer of “Blade Runner 2099.” A TV sequel to the film “Blade Runner 2049” (itself a sequel to the landmark original “Blade Runner”), the new series comes from showrunner/executive producer Silka Luisa (“Shining Girls”). Ridley Scott is also an executive producer on “Blade Runner 2099,” which comes from Alcon Entertainment and Scott Free Productions. Also joining the writers room is Tom Spezialy (“The Leftovers”), who will also serve as an executive producer. “Blade Runner 2099” has been a long time coming. Scott first revealed the series was in the works in November 2021, while Amazon revealed it was in development in February 2022. The series was officially ordered last September. A plot for the new Prime Video series remains under wraps.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film Writer Get the dialect coach on the line — we’re going back to Southeastern Pennsylvania with “Mare of Easttown” creator Brad Ingelsby. The writer-producer has set the new feature film “Echo Valley” at Apple Studios, and recruited Julianne Moore and Sydney Sweeney as his stars. “Echo Valley” will follow Oscar winner Moore as Kate Garrett, a woman reeling from a personal tragedy who spends her days boarding and training horses on the secluded and picturesque Echo Valley Farm. Late one night, her wayward daughter Claire (the Emmy-nominated heat-seeker Sweeney) arrives at her doorstep, frightened, trembling and covered in someone else’s blood. From that simple premise, “Echo Valley” becomes a heart-pounding thriller about just how far a mother will go to save her child. 

Charna Flam 20th Century Studios has announced new plot details, cast additions and production status for the latest “Alien” film. While the premise for the yet-to-be-titled movie has been kept under wraps, the studio did reveal that the film will follow “a group of young people on a distant world, who find themselves in a confrontation with the most terrifying life form in the universe.” Those who will be faced with the terrifying forms are David Jonsson (“Industry”), Archie Renaux (“Shadow and Bone”), Isabela Merced (“Rosaline”), Spike Fearn (“The Batman”) and Aileen Wu (“Away from Home”), all of whom will join the previously announced lead, Cailee Spaeny (“Mare of Easttown”).

David Jonsson (Industry), Archie Renaux (Shadow and Bone), Spike Fearn (Aftersun) and newcomer Aileen Wu (Away from Home) have signed on to star alongside Cailee Spaeny and Isabela Merced in the new Alien film that Fede Alvarez (Evil Dead) is directing for 20th Century Studios, Deadline can confirm.

Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones have a unique sort of competition.

For those who love South Korean cinema, Na Hong-jin‘s “The Wailing” was a special treat when it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2016: a rural police procedural with a touch of the macabre and supernatural. But that was almost seven years ago, so what has Na been up to lately? Well, the director has a new short called “Faith” he shot on the new Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra, ready for its release after a press screening late last month.

A version of this story about Oscar nominee Paul Mescal and “Aftersun” first appeared in the Down to the Wire issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine.  Irish actor Paul Mescal turned 27 the week after his first Oscar nomination for playing a wounded, doing-his-best young father on holiday in Turkey with his wise-beyond-her-years daughter (Frankie Corio) in writer-director Charlotte Wells’ semi-autobiographical “Aftersun.” That makes him the youngest acting nominee this year. The film also catapulted his already-soaring reputation as a talent to watch, following his Emmy-nominated breakout role in Hulu’s “Normal People” in 2020.

Canadian actor Michael Mando, known for his roles in “Better Call Saul” and “Orphan Black”, has been let go from Apple TV+ series “Sinking Spring”.