As always here is this week’s film news roundup, as I pick some of the stories that caught my eye over the last seven days.

Sly quits the Expendables (Arnie follows suit) – The Expendables franchise has lost its star and one of the key writers as Sylvester Stallone has quit the franchise. Deadline has reported that Stallone won’t be appearing in the fourth installment of the franchise due to creative differences with Avi Learner, one of the key producers on the film and the chief of Nu Image and Millennium Films. The films featured a whole host of classic action stars, with Stallone’s character serving as the lead that everyone else played off. The film then took another hit later in the week as Arnold Schwarzenegger also said he wouldn’t appear in the film with Stallone.

Avatar 2 will start shooting in Autumn – The long awaited sequel to Avatar, the highest grossing film of all time, is finally due to start shooting soon according to one of the stars, Sigourney Weaver, who told The Hollywood Reporter “we will be actually shooting it by the fall”. Director James Cameron has previously stated his desire to create 4 more sequels in April of 2016. There still isn’t an official release date for Avatar 2 yet, with the last new being that it won’t be in 2018. Given that Avatar grossed an insane $2.788 Billion Dollars it’s absolutely no surprise that a sequel is getting made, its just a surprise that it’s taken this long to get off the ground.

14 More Transformers Films? – Michael Bay’s Transformers franchise seems to divide fans and critics, as despite being panned by the majority of critics (the fourth film only holding an 18% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes) the films still perform incredibly well at the Box Office. And with the fifth film, Transformers: The Last Knight, being released in June, Michael Bay has said that it lays the groundwork for the future of the series, which Bay claims includes another 14 films.

Michael Keaton will play Dumbo villain – Disney had previously announced that a live action remake of Dumbo would be happening with director Tim Burton taking the reigns. Now it looks like he may be reuniting with Batman and Beetlejuice star Michael Keaton as according to Variety the actor is in talks to play the villain of the film.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan joins The Rock in Rampage – Jeffery Dean Morgan, who is currently starring as the villainous Negan on AMC’s The Walking Dead has signed on to start alongside Dwayne ‘The Rock, Johnson in the upcoming monster movie Rampage based on the classic arcade game. He will team up with an ensemble cast that includes Naomie Harris, Malin Akerman, Joe Manganiello, Jake Lacy, Marley Shelton, PJ Byrne, Jack Quaid, Matt Gerald and Breanne Hill as the try to stop some monsters from wrecking havoc. The film is currently set to be released on 20th April 2018.

The Rock will be cruising through the Jungle – Another Disneyland ride will be following in the footsteps of Pirates of the Caribbean, The Haunted Mansion and Tomorrowland, as The Hollywood Reporter has announced that Dwayne Johnson will be starring in and producing a film based on the classic boat ride, Jungle Cruise. The previous attempts to make films based on rides has produced mixed results, whilst Pirates of the Caribbean has spawned a huge franchise, The Haunted Mansion and Tomorrowland faired less well. Jungle Cruise is currently set to begin production early next year.

So that is the movie news roundup of the last week. As always I would love to hear what you think on any of these stories, and if there are any others that you found interesting. Let me know in the comments.