It seems The Italian Job and Straight Outta Compton director F. Gary Gray s the man of the moment, as THR reports that he’s entered exclusive negotiations to helm Fast & Furious 8, while Variety adds that he’s also in the running to direct Marvel’s Black Panther.
Universal have been busy looking for a Furious 8 director ever since James Wan decided he didn’t want to helm. With an April 2017 release set they didn’t have much time, and hot on the heels of reports that they’d narrowed it down to a few name came reports of negotiations officially beginning with Gray.
Vin Diesel also confirmed it, posting a picture of him meeting Gray – an important part of the process, as Vin has to approve the director for him to get the job.
While the Black Panther news is less certain, it appear Gray is high up the list of potential directors. Selma‘s Ava DuVernay was previously attached to that one, but she has since left. However Gray may have difficulty making both, as with Black Panther set for summer 2018, he’d have to jump from one film to the other pretty quickly.
DC has extremely ambitious plans to create a comic book movie universe to rival Marvel’s, with the seeds being sown with next year’s Batman v Superman. That will lead into all sorts of film running up to a full-on Justice League film and beyond.
Dressed As A Girl is a documentary that probably won’t be welcomed by those who think LGBT people should be as close to staid, normal, boring straight people as people, as it follows a group of people whose gender expression and sexuality don’t fit into boxes. Indeed some seem almost militant in their expression, while others are getting older and wish they could hang up te heels – but they need the money.
The nights are starting to get longer and summer is finally fading away, which means it’s time to head to Cardiff for the 9th annual Iris Prize film festival. Running from October 7th until the awards ceremony on October 10th, Iris showcases 30 of the very best LGBT short films from around the world.
GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) has long been one of the highest-profile LGBT advocacy groups in the the US, thanks to its work challenging the US entertainment industry to be more inclusive and less reliant on derogatory stereotypes. However, its work has largely been confined to the States. That’s changing though, as GLAAD has announced that it’s expanding to the UK.
Sam Smith’s Writing’s On The Wall has just become the first Bond theme ever to reach number 1 on the UK single’s charts, and it’s just a few weeks until Spectre reaches cinemas, hoping to match the gargantual success of Skyfall.
The well-spring of Nicholas Sparks movies hasn’t run dry (despite what some people may have hoped), as 2016 will bring us The Choice, which has just released its first trailer.
While there’s certainly not the buzz that there was when the first Bridget Jones movie went into production, the character is heading back to cinemas soon in Bridget Jones’ Baby, and to show us that Renee Zellweger is indeed back on set, the first image has been released.
With the Marvel universe ever-expanding, the company is on a seemingly never-ending search for the right talent to put the movies together. Now they may have found one of the pieces for Thor: Ragnarok, as 
A Bigger Splash certainly has a great cast, with Tilda Swinton, Ralph Fiennes, Dakota Johnson, & Matthias Schoenaerts seek seclusion coming together for a film described as ‘an impeccably stylish tale of love, beauty, desire, sexuality; people who in trying to retreat from their world, only find it encroaching further upon them.’