Joe Dempsie going to space, Maisie Williams stuck in endless New Mutants reshoots here on Earth

Ages ago, Game of Thrones star Maisie Williams joined the cast of New Mutants, a horror-themed spinoff of the X-Men franchise. Check out the trailer:

Williams plays the mutant Wolfsbane, with Charlie Heaton as Connonball and Blu Hunt as Mirage. It looks pretty good…except for the fact that that trailer came out in 2017. The movie has had four release dates so far, and there are apparently more reshoots to come. What in the world gives?

Simon Kinberg, longtime coordinator on Fox’s X-Men movies and the producer of New Mutants, explained the holdup to Digital Spy:

"For all of these movies, Marvel’s really brilliant at scheduling pick-ups into their budget and schedule so it’s all prepared, and we have never been that smart. For us, we’re always scrambling to get these actors back together so they’re all in the same place at the same time. It would seem simple on The New Mutants because they maybe not as big movie stars as the main X-Men movies, but all of them are on TV shows, so we’ve got to wait until they get off their shows and they can all be in the same place at the same time."

Williams is done with Game of Thrones, Heaton is in Stranger Things, and Blu Hunt is in an upcoming Netflix series. I get that it’s tricky to coordinate schedules, but this is nuts.

At the moment, the movie has a 2020 release date. We’ll see. In the meantime, these delays have me feeling like…

While Maisie Williams is trying to figure out New Mutants, Garden State native George R.R. Martin is heading to New Jersey…well, to the New Jersey Hall of Fame, in spirit. He’s being inducted! Writing on his Not a Blog, Martin says the ceremony will take place in October in Ashbury Park. Also being inducted at that time will be folks like the Martha Stewart and Olympic gymnast Laurie Hernandez.

Get it, GRRM — we are proud of you!

Things are also going pretty well for Joe Dempsie (Gendry), whom Deadline reports is going to star in National Geographic’s The Right Stuff, based on Tom Wolfe’s novel. If you saw the 1983 adaptation, you know it’s about Project Mercury, NASA’s first spaceflight program. Dempsie plays Lt. Gordon Cooper, one of seven astronauts who became celebrities when they train to go into space in the ’50s and ’60s. It was pretty new back then, after all.

Dennis Quaid played Cooper in the original movie. There’s no release date for the new series yet, but it’s a pretty role for Dempsie.

BELFAST, NORTHERN IRELAND – APRIL 12: Joe Dempsie attends the “Game of Thrones” Season 8 screening at the Waterfront Hall on April 12, 2019 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. (Photo by Charles McQuillan/Getty Images)

Finally, we have some news about Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson, aka the Mountain, who is a professional strongman in his spare time.

In fact, Björnsson holds the title of the “Strongest Man in the World,” and hoped to defend it at the 2019 Tachi Palace World’s Strongest Man Competition in Bradenton, Florida. Unfortunately, Bleacher Report has it that he had to stop partway through the Giants Medley, which includes a super yoke and a farmer’s walk, due to a potential injury. Video below:

We don’t know how bad the injury might be, and of course Björnsson’s health should come first, but I hope this doesn’t prevent him from retaining his title.

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Here’s to a speedy recovery, Gregor!

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h/t Screen Crush, NJArts.net