Tag Archives: Jungle Book

Adam Valdez to Receive One of Variety’s Artisan Awards

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Adam Valdez is a true artisan…

The Latino Academy Award-winning visual effects supervisor will be one of the honorees at Variety’s sixth annual Artisans Awards, which celebrates those essential to the filmmaking process and who’ve exhibited the most exciting and innovative work of the year in their respective fields.

Adam Valdez

Valdezis being recognized for his work on Disney’s The Lion King, directed by Jon Favreau. Valdez, along with Rob Legato, serves as the film’s visual effect supervisor. 

Previously, he has worked on the The Lord of the Rings trilogy. And he nabbed an Oscar for his work on Jungle Book, also directed by Favreau.

The tribute evening will take place during the Santa Barbara International Film Festival on Sunday, January 19 at the Lobero Theatreand will be moderated by Variety’s senior VP and awards editor, Tim Grayand Variety’s artisan editor Jazz Tangcay.

The 35th Santa Barbara International Film Festival runs from January 15 through January 25.

Pedro Pascal to Star in Disney+’s Live-Action Star Wars Series “The Mandalorian”

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May the Force be with Pedro Pascal…

The 43-year-old Chilean actor is joining the Jedi universe, portraying the title character in The Mandalorian, the live-action Star Wars series that will be a flagship program for Disney+, the ambitious streaming service launching in 2019.

Pedro Pascal

Pascal is in final negotiations to star in the series, which chronicles the lone-wolf odyssey of a character who hails from the planet Mandalore, which Star Wars fans know as the homeworld of the notorious bounty hunter Boba Fett and Jango Fett.

Pascal memorably portrayed the passionate warrior Oberyn Martell, aka the Red Viper, on the fourth season of the HBO series Game of Thrones. He also played DEA agent Javier Peña on three seasons of Narcos, when the Netflix series centered on the cocaine cartels of Colombia. Pascal also played Agent Whiskey in the Foxfeature film Kingsmen: The Golden Circle in 2017.

The Mandalorian is written and executive produced by Jon Favreau, the director of Jungle Book, Iron Man as well as the upcoming reinterpretation of The Lion King. Favreau’s official description of the show: “After the stories of Jango and Boba Fett, another warrior emerges in the Star Wars universe. The Mandalorian is set after the fall of the Empire and before the emergence of the First Order. We follow the travails of a lone gunfighter in the outer reaches of the galaxy far from the authority of the New Republic.”

The events depicted in the series are set after the events of Return of the Jedi, which concluded with the fiery funeral of Darth Vader on the forest moon of Endor.

The first episode of the series will be directed by Dave Filoni (Star Wars: The Clone Wars). Also on board to direct early episodes are Taika Waititi (Thor: Ragnarok), Rick Famuyiwa (Dope), Deborah Chow (Jessica Jones) and actress Bryce Dallas Howard, whose previous directorial work has been limited to short films.

MTV Renews Baquero’s “The Shannara Chronicles” for a Second Season

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Ivana Baquero will have more to chronicle in the near future…

MTV has ordered a second season of The Shannara Chronicles, starring the 21-year-old Spanish actress.

Ivana Baquero

An adaptation of the international best-selling fantasy novels by Terry Brooks, the fantasy series hails from Smallville and Into the Badlands creators Al Gough and Miles Millar and Iron Man and Jungle Book director Jon Favreau.

It had a modestly-rated premiere run on linear television but did well in young demos, delayed and multi-platform viewing as well as on social media.

The series averaged a 0.98 L+3 rating in MTV’s core P12-34 demo, ranking as MTV’s top-rated new series this year.

Shannara also saw the highest average L+7 lift (+106%) for a freshman series in MTV history. A strong digital performer, the series pulled in 16.6 million streams across all MTV’s digital properties and ranks as the highest grossing digital download for a single season on MTV ever.

The Shannara Chronicles follows a trio of heroes who’ve embarked on a quest to stop a demon army bent on destroying humanity’s world. It stars Poppy Drayton as Amberle, an Elvin Princess; Baquero as Eretria, a Human Rover; Austin Butler as Wil, a Half-Elf, Half-Human, and Aaron Jakubenko as Ander.

In the season finale, Baquero’s character stays behind in Safehold to give the others time to escape from the Trolls following them. It is revealed that Eretria has been captured by Trolls; and she recognizes one of her captors .

The Shannara Chronicles is co-produced by MTV, Sonar Entertainment and Farah Films.

“This dream team delivered a beautiful, ground breaking show with compelling stories and character journeys which brought in new viewers,” said Mina Lefevre, EVP and Head of Scripted Development at MTV.