Movie Muser

It’s been a long time now that Dwayne Johnson has been attached to voice a character in Disney’s planned animated movie, Moana. However he’s been the only actor we’ve heard about.

Now Disney has announced who it is who will be playing the title character, with Hawaii-born 14-year old actress Auli’i Cravalho having scored the role. Alongside the news comes the first official picture and a video introducing us to Cravalho.

The first footage from the movie was shown in August as Disney’s D23 expo, and it was enthusiastically received by those who were there. That footage hasn’t been released online, so sadly we can’t all judge what it was like.

Ron Clements and John Musker (The Little Mermaid) are set to direct the movie. Here’s the synopsis: ‘In the ancient South Pacific world of Oceania, Moana, a born navigator, sets sail in search of a fabled island. During her incredible journey, she teams up with her hero, the legendary demi-god Maui, to traverse the open ocean on an action-packed voyage, encountering enormous sea creatures, breathtaking underworlds and ancient folklore.’

Dwayne Johnson is set to voice demi-god Maui, who’s the other character in the pic above.

It’ll be in cinemas towards the end of next year.

For a while now Neils Arden Oplev, who directed the original Scandinavian adaptation of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, has been attached to helm a new version of Joel Schumacher’s 1990 movie Flatliners.

Now he’s starting to find his cast, with Variety reporting that Ellen Page is in talks to star. Julia Roberts, Kiefer Sutherland and Kevin Bacon as a group of medical students interested in what happens at the point of death. They start secrets experiments where they stop each others hearts, but revive them before it’s too later. However once they get a taste of what’s on the other side, they want longer and longer there – and they may be bringing something back.

There’s no news on the exact character than X-Men and Freeheld star Ellen Page will play, but presumably she’ll be a medical student.

It seems The Italian Job and Straight Outta Compton director F. Gary Gray s the man of the moment, as THR reports that he’s entered exclusive negotiations to helm Fast & Furious 8, while Variety adds that he’s also in the running to direct Marvel’s Black Panther.

Universal have been busy looking for a Furious 8 director ever since James Wan decided he didn’t want to helm. With an April 2017 release set they didn’t have much time, and hot on the heels of reports that they’d narrowed it down to a few name came reports of negotiations officially beginning with Gray.

Vin Diesel also confirmed it, posting a picture of him meeting Gray – an important part of the process, as Vin has to approve the director for him to get the job.

While the Black Panther news is less certain, it appear Gray is high up the list of potential directors. Selma‘s Ava DuVernay was previously attached to that one, but she has since left. However Gray may have difficulty making both, as with Black Panther set for summer 2018, he’d have to jump from one film to the other pretty quickly.