The Wachowski’s (and Tom Tykwer’s) Cloud Atlas hits screens nationwide in a little over a month.  Rodriguez’s Machete Kills! and Del Toro’s Pacific Rim are both in post-production.  So what lies ahead for Andy, Lana, Robert, and Guillermo?

For Robert Rodriguez, the answer is the oft-postponed Sin City: A Dame To Kill For.  The follow-up to his 2005 hit will begin filming this November.  Mickey Rourke, Rosario Dawson, and Jessica Alba are all on board to reprise their roles in the prequel/sequel, with Clive Owen expected to return as well.  No word yet on who will replace the late Michael Clarke Duncan in the role of “Manute”.  Like the first, expect this one to be another all-star cast and full of RR regulars.  The film is currently targeting an October 4th, 2013 release.

Next up…The Wachowskis.  We had to wait five years between The Matrix sequels and Speed Racer.  Then came the four year gap between that 2008 masterpiece and this years Cloud Atlas.  Lucky for us, the Movie Gods are feeling rather generous this time out.  According to co-lead Channing Tatum, the sibling duo’s space opera epic (and trilogy starter?) Jupiter Ascending is penciled in for a February start date.  That should give Andy and Lana plenty of time to finish up pre-production and for Tatum to finish his work on the currently-shooting Roland Emmerich actioner, White House Down.  The plot revolves around a bounty hunter (Mila Kunis) who is charged with exterminating a nobody (Tatum) who somehow threatens the power of the Queen.  That’s incredibly vague, but it isn’t like I need much to anticipate another wild tale from these two.  Warner Brothers is distributing the film, which is expected to hit sometime in 2014.

Finally, we reach one of CHUD’s favorite underdogs:  Guillermo Del Toro.  We know that he is finishing up work on the aforementioned Pacific Rim and continuing to oversee work on Pinocchio (another intended 2014 release).  We also know that he has a plethora of projects*, both adaptations and originals, just waiting to be made some day.  What could ACTUALLY be next though?  According to star Emma Watson, GDT’s next live action piece will be his version of Beauty and the Beast.  Barring any drastic changes, she expects filming to commence sometime next summer.  That means that we could potentially be blessed with THREE films from Del Toro in less than two years and that’s not even factoring in the television projects he is involved in.

Source | The Playlist

 

* – The Haunted Mansion, Frankenstein, Trollhunters (animated), Hellboy III, Slaughterhouse-Five, Drood, Saturn and the End of Days, Montecristo, Crimson Peak, Mephisto’s Bridge, At the Mountains of Madness, The Champions, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, etc….and I’m sure I’ve forgotten at least a handful more.  That’s one hell of a to-do list!