Stephen Rider Joins Daredevil Season 2

Playing District Attorney Blake Tower

It's clearly a morning for Netflix casting news. Following stories about Luke Cage and Bloodline, here's some Daredevil. Stephen Rider (Safe House, The Butler) will be joining the cast for the second season of the street-level Marvel vigilante show. He's playing District Attorney Blake Tower.

Tower comes straight from the comics, although as is par for the course, he'll certainly have been adapted for purpose here. The character made his debut in a 1968 Marv Wolfman issue ("Man-Bull In A China-Town!") and has been a sporadic returning character - in Daredevil and other titles - ever since. In more recent years he was instrumental in She-Hulk's law career.

Deadline's intel pegs Tower as a regular character and an ally for Charlie Cox's Matt Murdock, feeding him the information that helps him catch bad guys. Rider joins other new cast members including Elodie Yung as Elektra and Jon Bernthal as Frank Castle, AKA The Punisher.

Daredevil will be back on Netflix next year, likely launching in April. The connected Jessica Jones will arrive beforehand in November, with Luke Cage probably arriving after Daredevil sometime in 2016.

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Andrea Riseborough Signs Up For Bloodline

Joining John Leguizamo as another new cast regular

On its way to a highly anticipated second season, following the surprisingly dramatic events of its first, Netflix's Bloodline is assembling a new batch of characters to join the originals. Latest to sign up for a recurring role is Andrea Riseborough.

She'll play Evangeline, a streetwise and unpredictable character from the past of series anti-hero Danny Rayburn. She joins John Leguiazamo, who's playing the violent Ozzy Delvecchio, yet another unwelcome face from Rayburn history. Be sure your sins with catch up with you, and all that.

The series so far has revolved around the wealthy Rayburn family: owners of property in the Florida Keys. All seems to be well among them until eldest son Danny returns home and starts to reveal some of the darker secrets the clan has kept buried for years. Soon the family is tearing itself apart as skeletons come rattling out of the closet.

Kyle Chandler and - somehow - Ben Mendolsohn are among the returning players, and Bloodline will resume on Netflix during the first half of next year.

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Straight Outta Compton Sequel To Focus On Death Row Records

Producer L. Leigh Savidge adapting his documentary

With the unprecedented critical and box office success of N.W.A biopic Straight Outta Compton, some of those involved are, not unnaturally, musing ways to follow it up. One such in particular is Compton co-executive producer L. Leigh Savidge, who's now in the early stages of turning his book and documentary Welcome To Death Row into a narrative feature.

The story, touched on in Straight Outta Compton, would delve further into the formation, rise, copious feuds and controversy surrounding Dr Dre and Suge Knight's label Death Row Records: home of breakout megastars like Snoop Dogg, Tupac Shakur and many others (including Dre himself).

Those four principal players have already, of course, been cast in Compton: Corey Hawkins as Dre, Keith Stanfield as Snoop, Marcc Rose as Tupac and R. Marcos Taylor as Suge. There's no guarantee at this stage that all or any of them would reprise their roles, however. Those would be deals to be worked out. 

Another sticking point could possibly be the music rights, although those are likely less of an issue now that Knight no longer controls them. The gangsta mogul has been vocally unhappy about his portrayal in Compton, but Death Row's back catalogue these days resides with Entertainment One following Death Row's bankruptcy. Knight's immediate future is a murder trial. 

Early days but intriguing prospects then, and this isn't the only project to have its discs set spinning by F. Gary Gray's film. The long-gestating Tupac biopic has suddenly found its groove. That project, which had John Singleton attached for a time, is now moving ahead with Carl Franklin (Devil In A Blue Dress) directing. More on both projects as we get it.

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Star Wars: The Force Awakens Toys Offer New Clues To The Film

And Kylo Ren talks at last...

We have reached the stage in a modern Star Wars film’s life that could be called Merchandising Madness. It’s when shops open at midnight and adults battle with kids for the new toy goodness. The Force Awakens has Force Friday, and it brought some items that offer clues to the film.

Be aware we’re entering spoiler territory, here, even if it is of the mild and speculation-minded variety.

First up are talking figures of a First Order trooper and Kylo Ren. He’s still mostly mysterious, though J.J. Abrams did reveal some of his secrets to us. One of the figures allows you to remove his cloak and get a good gander at his helmet (stop sniggering, it’s undignified), which definitely appears to be influenced by one D. Vader, which fits with Ren’s obsession with the Sith Lord. The figure also allows you to hear Ren’s voice for the first time – Adam Driver’s tones, but processed through a metallic filter (well, he is wearing a mask) – and you can hear some of what he says, including the phrases, “I'm immune to the light”, “That weapon is mine” and “Is it true...you're just a scavenger?” Out of context, for sure, but yet more hints to what he’s all about. In the same range is a figure of John Boyega’s Finn, which has the actor using an American accent for lines such as “The name's Finn and I'm in charge now”, “We go back to Jakku, we die” and “Stay low and put up the shields”, mostly delivered at a loud volume. He shouts a lot, that Finn. Hear more from Ren here and Finn here, via IGN’s videos. 

Oscar Isaac’s Poe Dameron is also the source of some speculation, since his toys feature a black X-Wing squadron and references to Black Squadron. Sounds like the Resistance goes in for cooler colours than the old white Rebel fighters.

There are also some intriguing new character names thrown up by other toys. One, who was leaked when the figures began shipping to shops and pictures arrived in catalogues, is Constable Zuvio, who has yet to be mentioned in any official capacity? Who is he? What does he do? He sounds like he’s some sort of authority figure, but he doesn’t look too friendly… 

 

And figures that come with the new LEGO Millennium Falcon include Han, Chewie, Rey, Finn, BB-8 and… two characters who have been mentioned before but still remain mysterious: Tasu Leech and “Kanjiklub Gang Member”. It’s been speculated they’re played by two of the team from The Raid and The Raid 2, Iko Uwais, Yayan Ruhian and Cecep Arif Rahman, who were hired to work on clashes for the film. We’ll find out for sure when the film itself arrives on December 18.

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Cat Deeley Announces Pregnancy, Gets Perfect Response From Dance Producer

Funny co-workers are one of life's underrated joys.

So You Think You Can Dance host Cat Deeley announced on Thursday that she's expecting her first child with husband Patrick Kielty. The two have been married since 2012.

"Exciting news," she wrote in a tweet. "Paddy and I are so happy to be expecting

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Giada De Laurentiis Is Officially Divorced and Owes Ex-Husband Tons of Money

Giada De Laurentiis is officially divorced... and it's going to cost her.

The Food Network star and her husband Todd Thompson announced their "amicable separation" in December of last year. As of Thursday, they're officially no longer married, according to People.

The couple had no prenup, however,

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First Teaser From Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children Arrives

Tim Burton's latest looks to turn back time...

Released without much fanfare, the first teaser for Tim Burton’s latest, Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children has arrived on the web. Don’t expect anything in the way of footage from the movie – this is strictly a teasing tie-in to the story.

Based on Ransom Riggs’ novel and adapted by Jane Goldman, the story follows 16 year-old Jacob (Asa Butterfield), who has grown up hearing tales of the titular orphanage’s odd residents from his grandfather. They included a girl who always floated slightly above the ground, another who could safely hold fire in her hands and twins who had a psychic connection. 

When his granddad suddenly dies, leaving behind a message for his grandson, Jacob makes the trip to the strange island off the coast of Wales. There he also finds the remains of Miss Peregrine’s place and discovers that some of those who lived there might not have left. Not only does the orphanage still exist, sort of, but its strange inhabitants are under threat from dark forces. 

As for why the looping pocket watch in the teaser? Be aware that this could be a spoiler for those who haven’t read the book, but in Riggs’ tome, the date September 3, 1940 is significant, as the home’s clocks (and the space-time continuum around it) reset every day to just before the island was bombed by Germany in World War II, allowing the residents to escape the disaster. Hence… Loop Day.

 With Eva Green, Allison Janney, Judi Dench, Samuel L. Jackson, Chris O’Dowd, Terrence Stamp, Ella Purnell and Rupert Everett in the cast, Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children (or, as it may be called, Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiars) will be out on February 19 next year. 

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