Hollywood loves ‘synergy’, so with Disney have lots of success with live-action versions of its animated hits, it makes sense they’d want to make one that also taps into Tinsel Town’s desire increasingly tap into the ever-growing Chinese market. As a result, we’re getting a live-action Mulan.
The film has now gone into production and to mark the occasion the first image has been released.
Here’s the synopsis: ‘Production on Disney’s Mulan, a live-action adaptation of the studio’s 1998 animated feature, has begun. The film will shoot on locations in New Zealand and China and will be released in the UK on March 27, 2020.
‘Liu Yifei (The Forbidden Kingdom, Once Upon a Time) was cast as Hua Mulan following a year-long global casting search. Joining her in the film are: Donnie Yen (Star Wars: Rogue One); Jason Scott Lee (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny); Yoson An (The Meg); Utkarsh Ambudkar (Pitch Perfect); Ron Yuan (Marco Polo); Tzi Ma (Arrival); Rosalind Chao (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine); Cheng Pei-Pei (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon); Nelson Lee; Chum Ehelepola; with Gong Li (Memoirs of a Geisha, Raise the Red Lantern) and Jet Li (Shaolin Temple, Lethal Weapon 4).
‘Mulan is the epic adventure of a fearless young woman who masquerades as a man in order to fight Northern Invaders attacking China. The eldest daughter of an honored warrior, Hua Mulan is spirited, determined and quick on her feet. When the Emperor issues a decree that one man per family must serve in the Imperial Army, she steps in to take the place of her ailing father as Hua Jun, becoming one of China’s greatest warriors ever.
‘Mulan is directed by Niki Caro (Whale Rider, McFarland USA) from a screenplay by Rick Jaffa & Amanda Silver (Jurassic World, In the Heart of the Sea) and Elizabeth Martin & Lauren Hynek based on the narrative poem The Ballad of Mulan. The producers are Jason T. Reed (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), Chris Bender (A History of Violence) and Jake Weiner (Criminal) with Barrie M. Osborne (The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King), Bill Kong (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Monster Hunt) and Tim Coddington (Crazy Rich Asians) serving as executive producers.’
Every year in October in Cardiff, Wales, the Iris Prize LGBT+ Film Festival presents an array of fascinating films. The centrepiece of the event is the Iris Prize, which has been justifiably been called the ‘Oscars of LGBT short film’. Filtering in the best shorts from LGBT films festivals around the world as well as those submitted directly to Iris, it offers the winning filmmaker £30,000 to make their next short film here in the UK, supported by the Michael Bishop Foundation.
After it was announced last week that gender fluid actor Ruby Rose had been cast as a lesbian Batwoman in a planned TV series, both she and many other were thrilled by the news. However, others have taken issue with her casting, which has caused Rose to take a break from Twitter.
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The murder of Lizzie Borden’s father and stepmother became one of the most famous crimes of the 19th Century. It wasn’t just because of the ferocity of violence involved – both of them were killed by multiple ax/hatchet blows – but because it appeared a woman had committed the crimes.
When Sony released a first teaser for their Venom movie in February, they probably weren’t expecting the, erm, venomous backlash they received. While their were complaints about all sorts of things, the ultimately boiled down to the fact they’d released a trailer that failed to actually show Venom.
Synopsis: ‘Smallfoot stars Channing Tatum (The LEGO® Batman Movie, the Jump Street films) as the Yeti, Migo, and James Corden (Trolls, The Emoji Movie) as the Smallfoot, Percy. Also starring are Zendaya (Spider-Man: Homecoming), Common (Selma), LeBron James (upcoming Space Jam 2), Gina Rodriguez (Jane the Virgin), Danny DeVito (The Lorax, Oscar nominee for Erin Brockovich), Yara Shahidi (TV’s Black-ish), Ely Henry (TV’s Justice League Action), and Jimmy Tatro (22 Jump Street).
For a long time, James Cameron has been talking about making Alita: Battle Angel (or Battle Angel: Alita as it used to be called) but various other projects have gotten in the way. When he decided to concentrate on the world of Avatar, he gave up in directing Alita himself and passed the reins to Robert Rodriguez.
It’s difficult to imagine anyone except for Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger playing the lead roles in Brokeback Mountain, but it might have been very different. Before Ang Lee took over, Gus Van Sant was developing the film. However, he’s recently told 
There was a lot of frustration expressed a few months ago when Fantastic Beasts director David Yates said that while they were introducing a young Dumbledore (played by Jude Law) in The Crimes Of Grindelwald, he wouldn’t be ‘explicitly’ gay in the film. JK Rowling rather grumpily defended the announcement, saying that they were only two movies into a five film franchise and people should just hand on. However, that didn’t satisfy those already annoyed with the fact she’d made Dumbledore gay outside the Harry Potter books, but with little in the actual stories to back that up – they felt she was once more trying to have her cake and eat it, while not actually delivering any real LGBT representation.