“The True Story of Yasuke, the Legendary Black Samurai Behind Netflix’s New Anime Series”

“In 1579, an African man now known by the name of Yasuke arrived in Japan. Much about him remains a mystery: it’s unconfirmed which country in Africa he hailed from, and there is no verifiable record of his life after 1582. But Yasuke was a real-life Black samurai who served under Oda Nobunaga, one of the most important feudal lords in Japanese history and a unifier of the country.

He is also the inspiration for Netflix’s new anime series Yasuke—a project from creator and director LeSean Thomas and the Japanese animation studio MAPPA, executive produced by LaKeith Stanfield, who voices Yasuke, and Flying Lotus, who produced the soundtrack.

This is not the first time that Yasuke has appeared in popular culture. Author Kurusu Yoshio published the children’s book Kuro-suke about the samurai in 1968. Yasuke also showed up as a playable character in the 2017 video game Nioh. And in 2019, before Chadwick Boseman’s death, it was announced that the actor would play Yasuke in a film based on the warrior’s story.

The Netflix anime series takes a new approach in telling Yasuke’s story—one that combines historical elements with fantastical components. “Animation is always the medium where you can do things that real people can’t do,” Thomas told TIME. In the show, there are plenty of giant robots, magical beasts and otherworldly fight sequences involving supernatural powers. But there are also scenes inspired by events recorded about the African samurai’s life…”

https://time.com/6039381/yasuke-black-samurai-true-story/

“Shonda Rhimes: The Game-Changing Showrunner on Leaving ABC, “Culture Shock” at Netflix and Overcoming Her Fears”

“Shonda Rhimes was tired of the battles. She was producing some 70 hours of annual television in 256 territories; she was making tens of millions of dollars for herself and more than $2 billion for Disney, and still there were battles with ABC. They’d push, she’d push back. Over budget. Over content. Over an ad she and the stars of her series — Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal and How to Get Away With Murder — made for then-presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

But by early 2017, her reps were back in discussions with the company about a new multiyear deal. They’d already made a hefty ask of her longtime home and were waiting as the TV group’s then leadership prolonged the process, with one briefly tenured ABC executive determined to drive down the price tag on their most valuable creator. Meanwhile, Rhimes was growing creatively restless. “I felt like I was dying,” she says now of the unforgiving pace and constraints of network TV. “Like I’d been pushing the same ball up the same hill in the exact same way for a really long time.”

She knew her breaking point would come, but what it would be she never could have predicted. As part of her ABC relationship, Rhimes had been given an all-inclusive pass to Disneyland — and without a partner, she’d negotiated a second for her nanny. But on this day, she needed one for her sister, too, as she’d be taking Rhimes’ teenage daughter while the nanny chaperoned her younger two. If the passes had been interchangeable, Rhimes would have been happy to give up hers — when would she have time to go to Disneyland anyway?

After some unwanted back-and-forth — “We never do this,” she was told more than once — Rhimes was issued an additional pass. But when her daughters arrived in Anaheim, only one of the passes worked. Rhimes lobbed a call to a high-ranking executive at the company. Surely, he would get this sorted.

Instead, the exec allegedly replied, “Don’t you have enough?”

Rhimes was beside herself. She thanked him for his time, then hung up and called her lawyer: Figure out a way to get her over to Netflix, or she’d find new representatives…”

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/shonda-rhimes-is-ready-to-own-her-s-the-game-changing-showrunner-on-leaving-abc-culture-shock-at-netflix-and-overcoming-her-fears

“Netflix Gives ‘The Legend Of Korra’ The Redemption It Deserves”

“Given that Avatar: The Last Airbender’s arrival on Netflix was such a smash hit, with the show staying in the service’s various top 10 lists for months, it was only a matter of time until they also secured the rights to The Legend of Korra, the follow-up series.

As of this week, The Legend of Korra has hit Netflix, and it’s already the #5 offering on the entire service, #2 for TV, and I expect it to hang around the top ten for a while as people realize that A) it’s amazing and B) there are 52 episodes to get through, which is a lot more hours to consume that any new movie in the top 10, or new seasons of other Netflix shows.

This moment feels a lot like redemption for the show, which debuted in 2012 on Nickelodeon, a home that both extended it past its originally intended lifespan, then later tried to kill it prematurely. And yet, Korra endured, and became enough of a classic in the eyes of fans to land here, as a top 10 Netflix show, eight years after its debut…“

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2020/08/16/netflix-gives-the-legend-of-korra-the-redemption-it-deserves/#42b08907b1b4

“Netflix Renews The Dragon Prince for Four More Seasons”

“As one of the surprise announcements during Comic-Con at Home it was confirmed that Netflix‘s big hit The Dragon Prince would not only be coming back for another season, but it has been renewed for FOUR more seasons! During a special panel with the cast and crew of the series during the virtual convention, it was confirmed that The Dragon Prince has been picked up for Seasons 4 through 7. Netflix has announced that the Wonderstorm original animated series will continue telling the story of its saga for the foreseeable future.

During the The Dragon Prince Comic-Con at Home panel the news was delivered to both the cast and fans in (virtual) attendance, and everyone reacted with the same amount of excitement. As for what we can expect from these new seasons, each of these four new seasons will run for nine episodes each. Season 4 of The Dragon Prince was confirmed to be in production as of this panel, but there’s currently no concrete premiere date just yet.

The most exciting bit of this announcement is that this is now officially The Dragon Prince Saga. Netflix has confirmed that they are committed to seeing this entire Saga come to fruition, and with the confirmation that four new seasons will tell this story it’s certainly going to be a fun watch for many fans knowing that there are at least four more batches of new episodes coming in the pipeline…”

https://comicbook.com/anime/news/the-dragon-prince-season-4-renewed-four-more-seasons-netflix/

“Making ‘The Old Guard’: Gina Prince-Bythewood Turned Her Marvel Loss Into Her Own Netflix Franchise”

“When the director met with Skydance on “The Old Guard,” she knew that she had to nail her pitch for how to turn Greg Rucka’s script for his 2017 graphic novel into a riveting movie. And she must convince the executives in the room that she could pull off her first action film.

She wasn’t sure that Skydance, which backs the “Terminator” and “Mission: Impossible” franchises, among other tentpoles, would entrust her with a $70-million budget ten times bigger than “Beyond the Lights.” Skydance was actively seeking a woman director for the project about a team of ancient immortals, two women and three men, fighting to make the world a better place, who are not sure they’re making progress.

Prince-Bythewood landed the pitch meeting because she had spent a year and a half rewriting and prepping another comic-book movie, Sony’s Marvel “Spider-Man” spin-off “Silver & Black,” featuring female action heroes Silver Sable and Black Cat. “I wanted to go edgier than some of the Marvel films,” she said in a recent interview with IndieWire. “It was a question of how far could I push it in that Marvel universe.”

Not far, it turned out. Even though she parted ways again with Sony, she learned a lot about how to assemble an action movie. “‘Silver & Black’ put me in the conversation,” she said. “I was one of those couple of women people go to for these big films. I knew what kind of movies Skydance make. It was exhilarating and nerve-racking.

I knew I loved this project, partly because I could do everything I wanted to do from the other film: an edgy superhero film with two women…”

https://www.indiewire.com/2020/07/the-old-guard-gina-prince-bythewood-silver-black-1234572903/

“Avatar: Casting Netflix’s Live-Action Last Airbender TV Show”

“Avatar: The Last Airbender is getting another shot at a live-action adaptation, with Netflix creating a new TV show based on the beloved Nickelodeon fantasy series. Of the many things that M. Night Shyamalan’s 2010 film was criticized for, casting was high on the list, with white actors cast in the roles of main characters Aang, Katara, and Sokka.

Built around the fictional Four Nations – representing Earth, Wind, Fire and Water – Avatar: The Last Airbender‘s world is heavily inspired by Asian culture and philosophy. Aang, the titular Avatar and last airbender, practices Buddhism and grew up in the Air Temples, which are based on Buddhist monasteries. The conquering Fire Nation is largely based on Imperial Japan, while the steadfast Earth Kingdom draws particular influence from China. Meanwhile, the Northern and Southern Water Tribes are based on Inuit societies and culture.

Avatar: The Last Airbender‘s casting will come with a number of challenges. For example, there are a lot of Water Tribes roles to cast and a limited number of Inuit actors in the film industry. The main characters are also likely to be aged up from their early teens to late teens, to avoid the limitations placed on child actors’ working hours and the practical issue of very young actors noticeably ageing between seasons. With all that in mind, here are our suggestions for some of the actors who could play the biggest roles in Avatar: The Last Airbender…”

https://screenrant.com/avatar-last-airbender-netflix-show-cast-prediction/

“The Dragon Prince Is the Most Diverse Fantasy Series on TV”

“With two seasons under its belt, The Dragon Prince already established a reputation for itself as one of the most diverse and well-written animated fantasies ever. Season 3 continues to prove that the show is truly committed to the values of diversity and strives to break new ground all while developing its characters organically.

For too long the fantasy genre has mired in a pool of sameness and uncreativity. While the imaginations of creators sprouted into wild gardens filled with variety when it came to the types of stories being told and the creatures and places filling marvelous worlds, the same familiar traits in the characters plowed on without question. Predominately straight, white male casts — never mind if they were actually human or not — were, by and large, the standard throughout the 20th Century. As Hollywood and creative minds outside it push for greater diversity and inclusivity, the process has proven slow to take off.  Sometimes it’s not even particularly done well.

A lot of pushes for diversity in the industry either turned into offensive tokenism or bland box-checking. 2011’s Thor, for example, explored the fanciful world of the Asgardians, literal myths come to life in the shape of otherworldly aliens. Black actor Idris Elba’s Heimdall and Japanese Tadanobu Asano’s Hogun were mild steps in the right direction, but they’re indicative of Hollywood’s hesitancy to truly embrace the value of proper inclusivity…”

https://www.cbr.com/the-dragon-prince-most-diverse-fantasy-series/

“Hasan Minhaj Breaks Through Dunk Fatigue With ‘Patriot Act'”

“I never really thought about Dunk Fatigue until I saw Hasan Minhaj, on his new Netflix show Patriot Act, masterfully working around it.

What is Dunk Fatigue? Well, let us take as a baseline that public life currently is full of people who are pretty easy to dunk on. And let us define “dunk” as a satisfying joke or barrage of jokes mixed with truths, cathartic and merciless, ostentatious and totally sincere, done in front of an audience eager to cheer. Any time you see a headline that says “[SO-AND-SO] DESTROYS [SUCH-AND-SUCH] OVER [TOPIC],” where said destruction takes place in a video you can watch that’s just someone talking, that’s probably a good old dunk.

One of the challenges of a show that involves a lot of dunks, like Last Week Tonight or Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, is that after a while, it can find itself dunking on the same people over the same things…”

https://www.npr.org/2018/10/29/661624301/hasan-minhaj-breaks-through-dunk-fatigue-with-patriot-act

“Netflix Pulls The Plug On ‘Luke Cage’, No Season 3 For Marvel’s Harlem Hero”

“Unfortunately, Marvel’s Luke Cage will not return for a third season,” Marvel and the streaming service said on Friday. “Everyone at Marvel Television and Netflix is grateful to the dedicated showrunner, writers, cast and crew who brought Harlem’s Hero to life for the past two seasons, and to all the fans who have supported the series.”

This axing of Luke Cage came as a surprise.

A writer’s room under showrunner Cheo Hodari Coker had been working for around six months producing scripts and taking notes from Netflix and Marvel. As actors like lead Mike Colter remained under contract, a formal Season 3 order was considered almost a foregone conclusion by all concerned.

After rising tensions the past month, that conclusion was scrapped as it all went distinctly south in the last 48 hours.

The pink slipping of Luke Cage was ultimately a combo of the age old Hollywood “creative differences” and the inability for the parties involved to reach a deal on how to move forward, according to sources…”

https://deadline.com/2018/10/luke-cage-cancelled-marvel-netflx-mike-colter-cheo-hodari-coker-1202486487/

“Latest Daredevil Season 3 Promises Showdown With The Kingpin”

 

“The classic Marvel villain Wilson Fisk was so memorably portrayed in the first season of Netflix’s Daredevil that his absence from most of Season 2 was keenly felt. Luckily the character is back for the upcoming Season 3. Netflix are using the Fisk’s return as the focal point of their marketing–we’ve already had one Fisk-centric teaser this week, and now another has been released.

This one uses a menacing voiceover from actor Vincent D’Onofrio, who tells us that “love blinded me” and that “the Devil took my throne.” Accompanying this are images of Fisk sitting in prison clothes, before it switches to the famous white Kingpin suit. Finally he announces that Daredevil “will never see me coming,” hinting at the showdown between these two enemies…”

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/latest-daredevil-season-3-promises-showdown-with-t/1100-6462136/