‘Gambit’ Dead? – Despite Channing Tatum attempting to put in the same amount of love that Ryan Reyonlds did for “Deadpool”, it seems like it will be futile. After another talent in director Gore Verbinski walked away, the production was halted and reshuffled to debut on June of 2019. However word is now that Fox has pulled the film entirely from it’s production schedule.

Jason Statham Universe Happening? – No. It’s not. But how great would that be? Former “Crank” director Brian Taylor, offered up his take on the francihse and if we’ll ever get a third film. Taylor joked about this on the Movie Crypt podcast, here’s what he said;

The prospects for Crank 3 would be much improved if the second movie had made more than $12 at the box office. So there really isn’t like a Fast & Furious financial incentive to do it, right? So, it’s got to be a great idea. It’s got to be everybody on the same page and passionate about doing something insane. My feeling about Crank 3 is that Crank 3 should be as exponentially more f—ed up than Crank 2 as Crank 2 was Crank 1. Obviously, there’s been talk here and there but I’ve never really felt that creatively it was f—ed up enough to really do. Because the studio will get in contact with us: ‘What do you guys think about this?’ ‘What do you guys think about that?’ And the scenarios are always very tame compared to what I think it should be.

….Obviously, there’s a great movie there somewhere. I don’t know if it’s going to be Jason Statham in a wheelchair, 40 years from now. I think there should be a Crank cinematic universe. Not just one movie. So, who knows? There’s nothing in the works right now. But you never know.

‘Lightingverse’ Coming? – Salim Akil wants a “Lightningverse”, according to a conversation with Yahoo! He’s quoted as saying;

Yeah, let’s hope so. We want to entertain. I know this show is topical and it has some political merit to it, but we also want to entertain and make people laugh and get them excited about the fight sequences, and the characters that are coming in, as well as the villains that are coming in. We hope it will be a well-rounded experience so yes, we’d love to see other superheroes come through.

Yet his character choice is concerning, saying;

Static could be interesting.

I mean, really? Now Static is no longer considered to be in the core DC Universe, as DC Comics continues to try and relaunch the Dakotaverse. Whether or not Black Lighting launches it’s own shared universe, which does seem unlikely, Akil wants to reiterate that he doesn’t want to be in the “Arrowverse”. While talking at the Television Critics’ Association Winter, he’s quoted as saying;

I say this with all due respect, but [the Arrowverse shows are] not really relevant to the show that we’re doing. The great thing that Warner Bros. and CW allowed us to do was create our own world. We really wanted folk to get to know this family before we started branching out.

Comic Company Valiant Gets Bought – Valiant is no longer an indy comic book company, as DMG Entertainment has formally acquired it. DMG has co-produced “Looper” and “Iron Man 3”. The company had a 57% stake in the company but now they own the moutright. The whole reason for this according to DMG CEO Dan Mintz is about getting movies made, and has nothing to do with the comics publishing.

Dinesh Shamdasani, Gavin Cuneo and Peter Cuneo are all resigning from their posts within the company, but Shamdasani and Gavin Cuneo are going to be involved to a degree in consulting roles

Mintz told THR that Valiant will continue publishing monthly comics, all the while aiming for other mediums and platforms.

You can expect more strong storytelling with a defined road to other platforms. I’m also looking forward to bringing the writers close to the filmmaking process, which is something that is also important, and not keeping them siloed into the comic book area.

Quick Hits – “Shazam!” beings filming today. Max Adler will play Pyro on “The Flash”. “Happy!” gets a second seasons at SyFy. Warner Bros. relaunches straight-to-dvd brand.