Sci-Fi Storm

In a further consolidation of distribution and marketing rights from studios it has acquired in recent years, Disney has reached an agreement with Paramount to acquire the rights for any future Indiana Jones films – not that they’ve announced any plans for them.

Paramount retains the distribution rights for the existing films and will receive a cut of future ones.

Disney and Paramount reached similar agreements over Iron Man 3 and The Avengers after Disney acquired Marvel.

Now with Lucasfilm, Disney will produce, distribute and market all future Star Wars and Indiana Jones films. Does this mean we will see more Indy? Well, right now Disney seems to have all of the Lucasfilm guns aimed at Star Wars Episode VII as well as a couple ancillary Star Wars films and a new upcoming animated series, Star Wars: Rebels, and they haven’t announced anything for the future of Indy, but it seems an unusual deal if Disney didn’t plan on doing something, since it only applies to future productions. So it seems likely we’ll be hearing something in the near future…

We know Henry Cavill will be back as Superman. And we know that Ben Affleck has been tapped for the Caped Crusader…but now we know who is playing Wonder Woman – not that we knew Wonder Woman was going to be in Batman vs. Superman – well, at least I didn’t.

Warner Bros. has decided on Gal Gadot, who has starred in three of the Fast & Furious films and Knight and Day, to play the top female comic book hero in the film. It is felt that the appearance of Wonder Woman is helping plant additional characters for the future Justice League film, trying to compete with The Avengers for superhero organization supremacy.

The Shannara series, in development from Sonar Entertainment and Farah Films we reported on over a year ago, took another step closer to reality as MTV has given a script-to-series commitment as the network continues its move into scripted programming.

Jon Favreau (Iron Man) would direct the potential first episode at least, if MTV likes the script from Al Gough and Miles Millar. The pair worked previously with MTV president of programming Susanne Daniels to develop Smallville for the CW.

The fantasy drama is based on the popular Shannara series of novels by Terry Brooks. The first season is to be based on The Elfstones of Shannara, mimicking the novel-per-season format used by Game Of Thrones.

Now that The Mark Gordon Company is looking to continue the Narnia franchise, they’ve signed Life of Pi writer David Magee to pen the script for The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Silver Chair, the fourth movie in the franchise, after Disney/Walden Media produced The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe in 2005 and Prince Caspian in 2008, and Fox/Walden Media produced The Voyage of the Dawn Treader in 2010.

Magee has two Oscar nominations for his screenplays already: last year’s Life of Pi, which he adapted from the novel, and 2004’s Finding Neverland, about Peter Pan creator J.M. Barrie.

“I have always loved The Chronicles Of Narnia,” Magee said, “And I endlessly imagined myself finding my own passage into Narnia someday. All these years later, I’m getting to fulfill that wish just a little bit by writing the film adaptation of The Silver Chair and could not be more excited about it.”

As for any concerns over the age of the children – fans of the series know that the Pevensie children actually do not appear (at least as children) in three of the books, including The Silver Chair, and make a cameo in The Final Battle. This book continues with their cousin Eustace Scrubb, and introduces his classmate, Jill Pole.