WIRE Buzz: Chloe Grace Moretz leads 'The Peripheral'; Andy Samberg, Common get 'Super High'; more

Oh, Kick Ass! Chloe Grace Moretz will star in The Peripheral, the upcoming Amazon series based on the 2014 novel by William Gibson.  

Variety is reporting that Moretz will play the lead role of Flynne Fisher, who is described as “a woman trying to hold together the pieces of her broken family in a forgotten corner of tomorrow’s America.” Flynne is also described as “smart, ambitious and doomed,” and having “no future – until the future comes calling for her.”

Westworld showrunners Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan will executive produce the one-hour sci-fi thriller as part of their overall deal with Amazon. (The husband-and-wife producing team will also be delivering a Fallout adaptation for the streamer.) Scott B. Smith is handling showrunning duties, with Vincenzo Natali (In the Tall Grass) directing.

Moretz is no stranger to genre filmmaking. In addition to playing Hit GIrl in Kick-Ass and Kick-Ass 2, the actress also played the blood-sucking immortal Abby in Let Me In (the American adaptation of Let The Right One In), the eponymous telekinetic outcast high schooler in the 2013 cinematic adaptation of Stephen King's novel Carrie, and starred in the sci-fi actioner The Fifth Wave. Moretz is also set to star in the upcoming sci-fi film Mother/Android for Miramax.

Gibson, the acclaimed Neuromancer writer known for creating the cyberpunk subgenre, also wrote an unproduced script for Alien 3 that was recently adapted into both an Audible audio drama and a Dark Horse graphic novel.  

Can a stoner superhero save the world?

We're about to find out as Deadline reports that New Line Cinema has acquired the rights to Super High, a superhero comedy pitch that's being set up as a starring vehicle for Andy Samberg, The Office's Craig Robinson, and rapper-actor Common.

Per the trade, the film promises a fairly hilarious (if mellow?) storyline that centers around an all powerful marijuana that doesn't just get you high and give you the munchies, but grants you superpowers instead (wonder weed powers, activate!).

The idea comes from actor Shamier Anderson (Wynonna Earp) and award-winning author/humorist Adam Mansbach, who wrote the bestselling Go the F*ck to Sleep book, the audio version of which was famously narrated by Nick Fury himself, Samuel L. Jackson. He followed that with two sequels, You Have to F*cking Eat and F*ck Now There are Two of You, narrated by Bryan Cranston and Larry David respectively, while his debut screenplay, Barry, scored an Independent Spirit Award nomination and an NAACP Image Award.

As part of the seven-figure deal, Mansbach will pen the script while Party Over Here, 3 Arts, and Narrative will produce the film.

Credit: Silver Pictures

It’s been a year since Robert Downey Jr. hung up his Iron Man suit, but the actor still has other iconic roles to play with. One of those is his take on the memorable character of Sherlock Holmes, who he'll be playing again in a third film set to come out in December 2021.

Downey’s production company, Team Downey, which he founded with his wife Susan Downey, backed these movies and is looking to build out the franchise even more. During a panel at Fast Company’s Innovation Festival on Monday, the couple talked about their plans to build out the Sherlock Holmes universe based in part on RDJ’s experience of being part of the MCU. 

“At this point, we really feel that there is not a mystery-verse built out anywhere, and Conan Doyle is the definitive voice in that arena,” Robert Downey Jr. said. “So to me, why do a third movie if you’re not going to be able to spin off into some real gems of diversity and other times and elements?”

Susan Downey went on to talk about how the decade of being part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe was a master class for learning how to build out a franchise, and that they were considering several options, such as spinoff films focused on other characters in the Sherlock world as well as potentially developing television series on platforms like HBO and HBO Max. With other Sherlock spin-offs like Enola Holmes making waves on Netflix, it’s likely that some of these initiatives may see the light of day. The game is afoot, however, to see which ones will make it.

The mystery of Sherlock Holmes 3 — starring RDJ, Rachel McAdams, and Jude Law — will be solved Dec. 22, 2021.