Updates From Indiana Jones 5, Supernatural Spinoff The Winchesters, and More

Willow

In conversation with /Film, writer/producer Jon Kasdan revealed “the plot” of Ghostbusters II was “so instructive” to the Willow series, it became a “point of reference” for him and producer Max Taylor in nearly “every element” of the show.

I had a producer named Max Taylor who I worked with pretty much every day on the show. And I don’t think one of those days went by where we didn’t reference Ghostbusters II as a stalwart.

Kasdan additionally revealed he did not feel “the burden” to stay faithful to Chris Claremont’s controversial trilogy of Willow novels, instead looking to Allen Varney and Eric Goldberg’s RPG guide, The Willow Sourcebook, for inspiration.

[Lucasfilm lore advisor Pablo Hidalgo] relieved me of the burden of feeling like I needed to be beholden to those novels. At that point, I felt like we weren’t. But beyond that one thing, we tried to stay very faithful to everything that was written around Willow. We treated all that very seriously and we needed to be loyal to those elements of the story.

The Willow novels had their fans, but if they have a loyal audience that will only enjoy the new series if it faithfully follows their storyline, I haven’t come across them yet.

Star Trek: Picard

During a recent interview with Den of Geek, showrunner Terry Matalas revealed he pulled out all the stops to make the third season of Picard look and sound like Star Trek: The Next Generation.

I love the old Next Gen font. I’ve missed titles on episodes and seeing them and going, ‘hmm, I wonder what that means…?’ And the music was extraordinarily important to me. If we were going to say this is the last Star Trek: The Next Generation film, or 10 of the last Star Trek: The Next Generation movies—because all the episodes are very different—then it needed to sound like that, too. And that required [composer] Stephen Barton. Then, later in the season, the score gets so massive as the story grows that we had to bring in some help from Frederik Wiedmann, who’s a brilliant composer as well. I grew up with legends [like] Jerry Goldsmith and James Horner. Not to mention Dennis McCarthy and Cliff Eidelman. All those Trek composers have nods.

Star Trek: Prodigy

Meanwhile, Starfleet looks for dirt on the Protostar crew in the synopsis for “Preludes,” this Thursday’s episode of Star Trek: Prodigy.

A Starfleet Admiral digs into the past of the Protostar crew. Meanwhile, the Diviner recalls his life’s mission.

Written By: S1 Writers Room (Kevin & Dan Hageman, Julie Benson, Shawna Benson, Lisa Schultz Boyd, Nikhil S. Jayaram, Diandra Pendleton-Thompson, Chad Quandt, Aaron J. Waltke)

Directed By: Steve In Chang Ahn & Sung Shin

[Spoiler TV]

The Winchesters

ComicBook has our first look at Tom Welling as Samuel Campbell, a role originally played by Mitch Pileggi in Supernatural. Click through for more photos.

The Boys

Jeffrey Dean Morgan stated he’s “ready” to play his currently undisclosed role on The Boys in a recent Instagram post.

Oh OhOh @theboystv. Hope you ready for me… cuz I sure as shit ready for you! Memorizing as I run the fence line. A damn fine day… at least until I find the broken fence.

National Treasure: Edge of History

Finally, the cast of the National Treasure series needs your help solving a riddle discovered at the Library of Congress in a new promotional video.

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water.