It's Saturday, so you know what that means! It's time for the latest edition of the WhatCulture.com News Brief, where we bring you the hottest movie and television related news to hit the web over the last week. In the last installment I mentioned that the Hollywood news cycle was slowing down a bit... but that has seemingly changed this week, as we have a lot to talk about today! These recaps tend to be a bit superhero and blockbuster heavy, but this week Tinseltown gave us a bit more to work with, creating a more evenly balanced array of news items to talk about. On one end of the spectrum we have updates on Ridley Scott's next biblical epic, and the upcoming spin-off of The Conjuring (which gives me nightmares from the premise alone). Then we've got news about TV shows like True Detective, Arrow, and The Flash, as well as word on the status of the long-gestating sequels to beloved classics The Goonies and Gremlins. But wait, that's not all, folks! We also have a few news items that may just break the internet, and they have to do with Stephen Moffat, Dumbo, Star Wars, and Batman V Superman. Two of those items are related. I'll let you try to work out which while we jump into the honourable mentions for the week:
Honourable Mentions
Warner Brothers JK Rowling releases a new Harry Potter short story. Sure, this technically isn't movie or TV related... but do I really need an excuse? Go read it now!Jon Hamm joins Richard Linklater's The Incredible Mr. Limpet remake. He'll star opposite Zack Galifianakis, whose character gets turned into a fish. Seriously. How great does that sound? Alec Baldwin joins Mission: Impossible 5. His mission, if he chooses to accept it, will be to boss Tom Cruise around. Jack Donagy would be proud. Crystal Clarke and Pip Anderson join Star Wars: Episode VII. Don't worry, I've never heard of them either... Penelope Cruz joins Louis Leterrier's Grimsby, starring Sacha Baron Cohen and Mark Strong. She'll play the femme fatale. Yes please. The Weinsteins have decided not to fund Kevin Smith's Clerks 3, despite it only costing $6 million. Don't worry though, Smith says the movie will still happen. And now, onto the main event...