We’re back at Friday and our newest ‘Pop Culture News Edition Sixteen’ is ready to party. This week I did run across some stories I didn’t expect and that makes putting anything together more fun. Our collection of stories are a bit of a variety of things, which also, adds some interesting things to the conversation. At least I think so.
LIST | 10 OF THE MOST RECENT (HOPEFULLY GOOD) BOOKSHELF ADDITIONS!
There’s topics from Disney (live-action controversy?), TV shows (when isn’t there?) and other little tidbits including another really interesting episode from Alex Clark’s The Spillover podcast. Let’s get to covering some pop culture things!
POP CULTURE NEWS EDITION SIXTEEN
1: ARROWVERSE EXPANDS
Rumor has it the CW is developing another Arrow spin off, Justice U. The new team described as “would be heroes” and “five young meta humans to live undercover as freshmen at a prestigious university,” would be led by David Ramsey in a reprisal of his role as John Diggle. I’d be curious to see what this show is like… but given the description I’m already 99% sure I’d have some issues with it. However, it’d be worth giving a chance just to see what Diggle is up to. I loved the friendship he gave and had with Oliver Queen.
POP CULTURE NEWS EDITION SIXTEEN: THE ONE WITH LOTS OF STORIES #POPCULTURE #HAWAIIFIVE0 #NCIS #RAYLANGIVENS #TIMALLEN #THESANTACLAUSE #THESPILLOVER Click To Tweet2: HAWAII FIVE-O CROSSES OVER WITH NCIS… SORT OF
Beulah Koale will return to Hawaii in NCIS: Hawaii in a guest spot in the January 24th episode. I’ll be honest, I’m quite disappointed the actor won’t be reprising his role as Junior Raines from Hawaii Five-o. Pretty sure we’d all have loved that, and given his character remained on the team by series end, that would have been totally doable. In other older NCIS universe news, the original NCIS (you can tell it’s the patriarch by its lack of subtitle) will crossover with NCIS: Hawaii in a March story. During which we’ll see another Hawaii Five-o vet, Katrina Law (now on NCIS) return to Hawaii.
3: MORE HULU GUEST STARS
In another of our Pop Culture News segments we talked about some Only Murders in the Building guest stars. This past week Deadline reported that Shirley MacLaine and Amy Schumer will guest in the second series, but all without character details.
4: NEW NETFLIX ROMANCE
This is old news, and yet I didn’t realize it, so I thought I’d share. Ashton Kutcher and Reese Witherspoon will co-star in a script from Aline Brosh McKenna (The Devil Wears Prada) in a Netflix rom-com. According to Deadline, the story would go something like “In Your Place or Mine, two best friends who live on opposite coasts swap homes for a week and see their whole lives change.”
5: RE-BOOTING A COWBOY TV SHOW
FX is re-booting a fan favorite… sort of. The TV show, Justified, which ended after six years, is set to return in a kind of limited sequel run titled Justified: City Primeval. Based on a novel by Elmore Leonard (who did create the Givens character), the story sounds as though it will have a few differences. The series synopsis reads, in part, that Raylan Givens (reprised by Timothy Olyphant) will return where “his hair is grayer, his hat is dirtier, and the road in front of him is suddenly a lot shorter than the road behind.” I’m curious for sure given that I did, at the time, really like this show.
6: SOMEDAY MY PRINCE (WON’T) COME?
Ok. I’ll be fully honest, this story or rather the implication of this story disappointments me. Disney is developing a slew of new live-action originals. I’m excited about this, but while I loved something like Cinderella, they didn’t capture that same nostalgic magic in their more recent Mulan. Needless to say, after months of anticipation for the latter (I refused to buy Disney+ to see it so I waited the longer timeframe), there is disappointment.
The point is, one of their live-action remakes is set to be Snow White. Cast in the titular role is Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot playing the Evil Queen. Seems like there’s tradition with the appearance of two iconic characters, right? Well, recently news broke that Andrew Burnap is cast as the “lead male” character in the film. Here’s where things get weird. Disney has said that Burnap will not play the Prince or the Huntsman. The question now is, will the film steer that far from the nostalgia factor by doing away with the Prince? Or will he be a barely there presence and Burnap will play someone we aren’t familiar with?
If it’s going away from the feel of traditional storytelling, I’ll be sad because honestly, that’s what I loved so much about something like Cinderella. It had its own way of telling the story, but it did keep with nostalgia, and I respect that.
The composers for La La Land and The Greatest Showman are currently on board to write the music and the film currently has a 2023 opening date.
BONUS: Disney + is bringing back Tim Allen’s Santa Clause in a limited series run set to film in the spring. The show also will have Last Man Standing showrunner Jack Burditt on board. The synopsis says that Scott Calvin starts to realize he needs to go on an adventure and search for the person who will take his place as Santa.
Plus, Alex Clark interviews influencer Jess Fay in this week’s The Spillover podcast. It’s a super interesting conversation, especially if you like to follow influencers or you just like more light-hearted podcasts. Take a listen if you like! I thought it was a good conversation to be sure, and hope there’s more topics like this.
Did you see any of these stories? Which ones did you like or were there any that surprised you? Will you see Disney’s Snow White or do you think it’ll be too “out there” to be good? What are your thoughts on the TV news? What stories did you see and like? Comment all the comments! Let’s have some TGIF conversation!
Thank you for visiting! Please, do come back soon.