I’m standing in the doorway of an empty screening room when the call comes through: a worn star, a younger script, and a studio dialing the phone. You feel the gravity — not every phone call means a comeback, but every one changes the ledger. I want you to read this like a marker on a map: things that look settled are often moving underneath.
Predator/Commando
At a fan site interview, Arnold Schwarzenegger sounded both candid and cautious about returning to familiar territory.
I read Arnold’s remarks on TheArnoldFans and I want you to catch the two pulses here: the actor, the studio, and scripts being rewritten to his current age. He told the site that FOX has “rediscovered ‘Arnold'” and that talks are underway for a new Predator and a Commando 2, plus movement on King Conan with Christopher McQuarrie attached to write and direct. His comeback reads like a weathered revolver that still fires.
“They did an additional Predator and the director (Dan Trachtenberg) has been doing a great job of that. Now, he wants me to be in the next Predator. We’ve talked about it. As a matter of fact, FOX studios has kind of rediscovered ‘Arnold’. They’ve come to me and said, ‘We want you to do Predator, we just got a script for you to do Commando 2’. They just hired a fantastic writer/director who did Tom Cruise’s last four movies. They just hired him (Christopher McQuarrie) to write and direct King Conan. Now, what they do is that they write the part. They don’t write them like I’m forty years old, you write it to be age-appropriate. I’ll still go in there and kick some ass but it will be different. With King Conan, its a great old story that Conan was forty years as King and now he gets forced out of the kingdom and there’s conflict, of course, but somehow he comes back and there’s all kinds of madness, violence, magic and creatures and stuff like that. And now, of course, there’s all kinds of special effects. The studio has plenty of money to make those movies really big so i’m looking forward to all of those projects.”
Will Arnold return to Predator?
You should treat this as a high-propensity rumor with institutional backing: FOX approached him, Dan Trachtenberg remains a positive creative force, and the studio is explicitly writing age-appropriate parts. That doesn’t make it a done deal, but it does put the project in a different category than fan wishlists.
The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum
On casting chatter boards, a new name keeps turning up alongside rumor threads.
Insider DanielRPK (via World of Reel) says Anya Taylor-Joy is in talks for The Hunt for Gollum. If true, that’s a signal: the project is attracting actors with marquee recognition and indie credibility. You should expect the filmmakers to keep her role under wraps while they calibrate how she fits into the prelude mythology.
Who is in The Hunt for Gollum?
Right now it’s rumor territory. Anya Taylor-Joy’s name gives the film a higher profile, which could affect casting, marketing, and the scale of special effects attached to the production.
Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi
On a podcast this week, a guest reported that the Mangold project stalled inside corporate gates.
Jeff Sneider on The Hot Mic (picked up by World of Reel) said James Mangold’s 25,000-years-ago Star Wars idea is no longer moving forward at Disney and Lucasfilm. Rumors spread like spilled ink across a napkin — fast, messy, and hard to clean up — but Sneider is a credible source in the trades, so this is worth watching.
Is James Mangold’s Star Wars movie dead?
Not officially canceled on public record, but reports suggest the project is dormant at Lucasfilm. When a studio like Disney re-evaluates, projects can be paused indefinitely; some return, some don’t.
Ted
After a recent interview, Seth MacFarlane admitted there’s no current plan for another season.
Speaking to TheWrap, MacFarlane said Ted Season 3 faces a cost problem at Peacock and Universal. He and the showrunners wrote an ending that could fold the series back to the original film’s timeline, but with budgets as they are, the networks aren’t confident they can mount another season without significant changes.
“What I kept hearing [from Peacock and Universal] was, ‘Listen, the show is really expensive to produce and there’s no way to do it at a lower cost. So I said, ‘All right, I hear you loud and clear.’ So I wrote the last scene with Max [Burkholder] walking into a gym, presumably coming out as Mark Wahlberg in the first Ted film. So [showrunners] Brad Walsh and Paul Corrigan and I kind of painted ourselves into a corner. Is there a way to do it? There’s always a way to do anything. But at the moment, it might take some narrative acrobatics. There’s no plan that I’ve heard of at the moment to do Season 3.”
Spider-Noir
Empire Magazine just published fresh stills — one in color, one in black-and-white.
Those images hint at a tonal shift: stylized lighting, a noir palette, and a Spider-Man variant leaning into mood and texture. Empire’s feature, which circulated on Instagram, gives you the visual shorthand before the marketing push arrives.
Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Rifftrax Experiments
On Rifftrax’s official YouTube channel, a new title has been scheduled.
The revived Mystery Science Theater 3000 project will lampoon Sting of Death, the 1966 Florida monster picture. It’s a reminder that cult properties still drive content calendars for YouTube-first brands like Rifftrax.
Primal
The season finale trailer shows a largely healed Spear searching through ruins and memory.
Adult Swim released a clip where a mostly regenerated Spear hunts for his missing family. The scene suggests closure is near but the show’s creator still layers in ambiguity; you’ll want to watch the finale and judge whether the arc reads as catharsis or fresh complication.
Want more io9-style updates? I track studio moves on Fox, Disney, and Lucasfilm, and I follow trade outlets like TheWrap, World of Reel, and Empire for the signs that mean something. Which project are you betting will actually cross the finish line first?