The Force is strong in today’s Movie Morsels. That’s because we have our first new look at Star Wars: Episode VIII‘s Daisy Ridley in quite some time. We’ve also got the latest casting news on Spider-Man: Homecoming, new photos from Transformers: The Last Knight, an update on Alien: Covenant, and more!
Star Wars: Episode VIII
Here’s an amusing little story. As Star Wars fans well know, the hairstyles of the saga’s leading ladies have proved not only to be iconic, but often to reveal something about their respective films’ story, mood, or tone. From the no-nonsense Cinnabon roles Princess Leia sports in A New Hope to Queen Amidala’s elaborate extensions in The Phantom Menace, they’ve helped visually define Star Wars as much as most of its spaceships or aliens have. So it’s no wonder that Daisy Ridley is hiding her Episode VIII hairdo under a pillowcase in a video, which the actress released yesterday, of her Jedi-level workout. Begin spectulating as to what Rey will look like when she returns!
Spider-Man: Homecoming
Is there any Marvel movie outside of Captain America: Civil War with a cast as big as that of Spider-Man: Homecoming? At last count we had Bokeem Woodbine, Michael Keaton, Logan Marshall-Green, Tom Holland, Robert Downey Jr., Donald Glover, Zendaya, Marisa Tomei, Hannibal Burress, Martin Starr, Michael Mando, and Abraham Attah. And now we’ve got yet another new actor in Aussie actress, Angourie Rice, who won much praise for her her performance in this year’s The Nice Guys (pictured above). So just who will Rice play in Spidey’s debut Marvel solo film? Given that she’s 15, five years younger than star Tom Holland, is it stretching things to think she could conceivably play one of his high school classmates? Hmmm…
Alien: Covenant
Good ol’ Danny McBride lightens up just about any project he’s in, but can even he bring a ray of sunshine to the darkness of Ridley Scott’s Alien: Covenant? The actor has a few words to say to Rolling Stone about his role in the Prometheus sequel, as well as the film’s effects. “I’m the pilot of the spaceship Covenant,” says McBride, “which is a colonization ship, searching for a planet where we might start life anew.” Fans of old-school effects will be delighted to know that “Most of the stuff is practical effects: when you’re running from an alien it’s really a dude in an alien suit coming after you! The sets are incredible and you’re in them: We go through some inclement weather at one point on the spaceship and this whole gigantic set is on a gimbal, shaking up and down. You don’t have to use your imagination.†In what’s probably timed a little too well to be mere coincidence, Fox has released a new GIF of one of the production’s effects folks sculpting what looks like a Xenomorph hand…
Where it all begins. #AlienCovenant pic.twitter.com/X0aGEEtH3P — Alien Anthology (@AlienAnthology) July 6, 2016
Transformers: The Last Knight
In other on-set news, Michael Bay spent his Fourth of July like any red-blooded American: blowing shit up! In Bay’s case, however, those explosions took place on the set of Transformers: The Last Knight. Check out the “abandoned city” in the second of two new photos on the director’s website…
Kubo and the Two Strings
Finally today, we have a brand new trailer for what’s sure to be the next animated feature film favorite from Laika:Â Kubo and the Two Strings. Directed by Travis Knight and featuring the voices of Art Parkinson, Charlize Theron, Matthew McConaughey, Rooney Mara, Ralph Fiennes, and George Takei, the fantasy stop-motion epic will land on August 19. Enjoy!
What do you think of today’s top stories? Let us know below!
Featured Image: Lucasfilm/Disney
Images: Lucasfilm, Disney, Warner Bros., HBO, MichaelBay.com
