Michelle Yeoh to Star in the Next Star Trek Film, and More Movie News

Michelle Yeoh to Star in the Next Star Trek Film, and More Movie News

This week’s Ketchup brings you more headlines from the world of film development news, covering such titles as Star Trek: Section 31, Venom 3, and new projects for Angelina Jolie, Matt Damon, and Jason Momoa. This WEEK’S TOP STORY OSCAR WINNER MICHELLE YEOH TO STAR IN NEXT STAR TREK (Photo by Araya Doheny/Getty Images)
The Star Trek franchise has had decades’ worth of major stars who have appeared in some capacity, but there have been relatively few Academy Award winners in the films, with Whoopi Goldberg’s supporting role as Guinan in the Next Generation movies being the most obvious example...

This week’s Ketchup brings you more headlines from the world of film development news, covering such titles as Star Trek: Section 31, Venom 3, and new projects for Angelina Jolie, Matt Damon, and Jason Momoa. This WEEK’S TOP STORY OSCAR WINNER MICHELLE YEOH TO STAR IN NEXT STAR TREK (Photo by Araya Doheny/Getty Images)
The Star Trek franchise has had decades’ worth of major stars who have appeared in some capacity, but there have been relatively few Academy Award winners in the films, with Whoopi Goldberg’s supporting role as Guinan in the Next Generation movies being the most obvious example (she won Best Supporting Actress for Ghost). However, the franchise will soon have its first movie starring a Best Actress winner, with the news this week that Michelle Yeoh, hot off her win for Everything Everywhere All at Once (Certified Fresh at 94%), will reprise her Star Trek: Discovery character in a spin-off feature film called Star Trek: Section 31. The spin-off had originally been planned as a Paramount+ series, but Yeoh’s post-Oscars glow apparently inspired Paramount to make Star Trek: Section 31 the first feature film adapted directly from one of the recent shows, instead of continuing the “Kelvin” timeline featuring stars like Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saltana, Karl Urban, and Simon Pegg. Other Top Headlines 1. ETHAN COEN TO DIRECT CRIME COMEDY DRIVE-AWAY DOLLS (Photo by Mondadori Portfolio/Getty Images)
Joel and Ethan, aka the Coen Brothers (Fargo, The Big Lebowski, No Country for Old Men), are one of Hollywood’s longest running and most prolific filmmaking partnerships in not just Hollywood today, but possibly in all of Hollywood history. The two brothers generally shared writing, directing, and producing duties on most of their films, but Joel Coen was usually the one credited as director when only one was credited. This fall, Ethan Coen will be delivering his first solo narrative feature as director (he previously directed the documentary Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind in 2021) with a crime comedy called Drive-Away Dolls (9/22/2023). Drive-Away Dolls will follow a group of young women on a road trip to Tallahassee who come across a gang of incompetent crooks. The young stars will include Margaret Qualley (Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood), Geraldine Viswanathan (Blockers), and Beanie Feldstein (Booksmart) alongside other cast members like Matt Damon, Pedro Pascal, and Colman Domingo. 2. REAL-LIFE BLACKKKLANSMAN’S SECOND BOOK TO BE ADAPTED INTO A MOVIE (Photo by David Lee/Focus Features)
Spike Lee’s 2018 historical comedy BlacKkKlansman (Certified Fresh at 96%), the story of a black police officer who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan in the the 1970s, was based upon the true story of a police officer named Ron Stallworth (portrayed in the film by John David Washington). Those events were not, however, the only ones to make for a great story, as Stallworth has written another book called From BlacKkKlansman to Hip Hop Cop, which has also now been optioned to become a movie. It’s unclear what the movie’s title might be, but the story follows an older Stallworth in the early 1990s (1990 to 1991) as “gangster rap” starts to become popular in the (mostly white) suburbs of Utah, and Stallworth, as Salt Lake City’s only black cop, was called upon to investigate the rise in gang violence. It is also unclear if Spike Lee or John David Washington will return for this new adaptation. 3. KEANU REEVES AND SETH ROGEN SHARE AZIZ ANSARI’S GOOD FORTUNE (Photo by Kayla Oaddams, Amy Sussman/Getty Images) Master of None and Parks and Recreation star Aziz Ansari has faced a bit of a rocky road on his way to making his feature film directorial debut, after one project with Bill Murray that almost started last year was eventually shut down mysteriously. Lionsgate has...