Since I don’t have HBO I wasn’t able to catch their latest hit original series True Detective during its eight-episode first season run that began last January. But once it hit home video I was finally able to pick up the box set and binge watch every single hour, and by the end I was convinced I had just seen the best season of a television crime series since the first episode of the CBS classic Wiseguy in 1987. Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson both turned in some of the finest performances of their respective careers, aided immeasurably by the writing of creator Nic Pizzolatto and Cary Joji Fukunaga‘s atmospheric direction.

Now some possible casting and story details have surfaced, and can be read below if you’re all caught up and anxious for info on the sophomore season.

Lone Survivor
Director: Peter Berg
Screenwriter: Peter Berg
Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch, Emile Hirsch, Ben Foster, Eric Bana
Universal Pictures
Rated R | 121 Minutes
Release Date: January 10, 2014

“Live to tell the story.”

Written and directed by Peter Berg (Battleship, Friday Night Lights), Lone Survivor is based on the 2007 nonfiction book by Marcus Luttrell and Patrick Robinson.

Set during the War in Afghanistan, in the Pech District of Afghanistan’s Kunar Province, the film tells the story of the failed United States Navy SEALs mission Operation Red Wings, in which four SEAL teammates were tasked to capture or kill Taliban leader Ahmad Shah (Yousuf Azami).

Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch, Emile Hirsch, and Ben Foster star as SEALs Marcus Luttrell, Michael Murphy, Danny Dietz, and Matt ‘Axe’ Axelson, respectively. Their commanding officer, Lieutenant Commander Erik Kristensen, is portrayed by Eric Bana.

“When I saw I you, I believed it was a sign, that something new can come into this world,” says Tars Tarkas, the giant green Thark, as voiced by soulful Willem Dafoe in the teaser trailer for John Carter. Sadly, when the feature film entered our world, or at least in our cinemas, its reputation had already been tarnished by a soaring budget, backstage turbulence, and muddled marketing. Not until the release of Michael D. Sellers‘ winning book, John Carter and The Gods of Hollywood, have we truly appreciated all of what truly unfolded behind the scenes, of what John Carter could have been.

Before I dive into the book, let me share with you my experience with the film. I followed John Carter‘s production process extensively years prior to its March 2012 opening, as I was just as excited as any other Andrew Stanton fan of this Academy Award-winner directing an adaptation of the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel. Though I was not terribly familiar with the material, I felt enchanted by the riveting content. I was more than thrilled to be one of only thousands of individuals to see early scenes of John Carter at the Disney D23 Expo in August 2011. Some felt apathetic over the clips. Me, I was engaged every second. My fascination with this project led me to write many John Carter articles for Fused Film, the site I previously wrote for, and I have continued to throw in references to Carter in many of my Geeks of Doom pieces. I was on cloud nine when I saw that a book about this topic entered the market.

Savages
Directed by Oliver Stone
Written by Shane Salerno, Don Winslow
Starring Taylor Kitsch, Aaron Johnson, Blake Lively, Salma Hayek, Benicio del Toro, John Travolta
Universal Pictures
Rated R | 127 Minutes
Release Date: July 6, 2012

“There’s something wrong with your love story, baby.” – Elena (Salma Hayek)

You’re goddamn right there is, Salma. Oliver Stone‘s latest film, Savages, is a heavy-handed, ineffectual effort that produces plenty of smoke with little fire.

Based on the novel by Don Winslow, Savages stars Blake Lively (Green Lantern) as Ophelia, one of many detestable, unbelievable characters in this moth-eaten shambles of a story. Ophelia is a blonde-haired flower child with the unique benefit of having not one, but two douche-bag boyfriends!

Former Navy SEAL and ex-mercenary Chon (Taylor Kitsch) and Ben (Aaron Johnson), a charitable Buddhist-slash-environmentalist (code for “white guy with dreadlocks”), run a lucrative business growing some of the most potent marijuana ever developed. That’s right, the ultra-aggressive dick you hated in high school and the pacifist Greenpeace volunteer who looks down on you for not recycling are BFFs and they’re totally cool with sharing the same clueless trust fund hippie.

John Carter
Blu-ray | Blu-ray 3D | DVD
Directed by Andrew Stanton
Starring Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins, Willem Dafoe, Mark Strong, Ciarán Hinds, Dominic West, James Purefoy
Walt Disney Pictures Home Entertainment
Release Date: June 5, 2012

Written by Edgar Rice Burroughs, A Princess of Mars is the first book in the John Carter of Mars series, which tells the story of a Civil War veteran transported to Mars.

For nearly 100 years, Hollywood has failed in its attempts to bring Burroughs’ classic science-fiction fantasy to the silver screen, though the ideas presented were borrowed by countless other works.

Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars series is so old that it actually influenced other influences. From Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian series to the pulpy Flash Gordon serials of the ’30s and ’40s that inspired George Lucas’s Star Wars, the themes and elements of Burroughs’ work have been mined so thoroughly that most moviegoers will find Disney’s live-action film adaptation, John Carter, to be rather irrelevant – but that’s not to say it isn’t entertaining.