ruth-negga

We’re in the homestretch for the weekend, and after a pretty eventful day in the comics world, let’s take a look at a few headlines being discussed on the Entertainment side of things:

– AMC’s Preacher has acquired its first cast member and it is someone not wholly unfamiliar to the comic book world. Ruth Negga, who plays Raina on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., has joined the new series as Tulip. For those unfamiliar with Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon‘s much loved Vertigo series, Tulip is one of two compatriots of Jesse Custer, a man who merges with an escaped creature from heaven and goes on a quest to find God.

Here’s how Tulip is described by Deadline:

a volatile, action-packed, sexified force of nature, a capable, unrepentant criminal with a love of fashion and ability to construct helicopter-downing bazookas out of coffee cans and corn shine who’s not afraid to steal, kill or corn cob-stab her way out of a bad situation.

The pilot for Preacher is written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, and the series will be showrun by Sam Catlin (a writer for Breaking Bad). The indication with Negga’s casting means she will likely be written out of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., which is a shame given she’s one of the few highlights of that series.

– Another day, another interesting Latino Review rumor; this time they report that Watchmen actor Jackie Earle Haley‘s name is being tossed around Suicide Squad for the role of The Thinker. While they say to take this one with a grain of salt, more interesting to me is the fact that The Thinker is in the film. Based on comics history, the character will likely be one of the film’s antagonists.

– Were you keeping your fingers crossed for a possible Dredd sequel? Well, you can loosen those digits up a bit, as Alex Garland, the screenwriter for Dredd, has stated that it’s pretty unlikely to happen in an interview with Collider:

GARLAND: And I also feel a sense of responsibility because I know there are these people who do this stuff like they’ve got money and they spend money on a DVD to try and up the chance of a sequel getting made. Because I don’t have an online profile or persona or anything like that I can’t speak to these people directly, but what I want to say is that’s so good of you, and thank you, but keep your money because the people who make the decisions don’t get moved by that kind of thing. They’re moved by other stuff, other equations, other algorithms…How can I say this without being soppy? It’s touching. It means something that these people support the film in that way, but the thing people want, which is a sequel, I don’t think is going to happen. I think it will happen (let me rephrase that) I don’t think it’s happening with me and the people who made the last one.

It’s worth noting that Garland’s directorial debut, Ex Machina, is getting great reviews from the UK crowd where it has been screening. Hopefully that reaction will carry over here stateside. It’s easily one of my most anticipated movies of the year.