Hugging it out on the set. With the best producer @robbullock1969 and the best Jonathan pine!!!

A photo posted by Kristin Jones (@kikibeach) on Jun 28, 2015 at 6:26am PDT

We actually have some interesting Tom Hiddleston news this week! I’m excited. I can’t wait for Lord Dragonfly’s Promotional Trails to begin in earnest. First up, I Saw the Light has a US release date – it will come out November 27th in America, which is a good time for an Oscar-bait release. Early November would actually be better, but I suspect ISTL will be coming to several of the late summer/early fall film festivals, possible TIFF and the BFI London Film Festival. Radio Times did a piece about how the “Oscar omens” are looking pretty good, and it does genuinely seem like Sony Pictures Classics (the distributor for ISTL) will be spending some money for a potential Hiddles Oscar Campaign. SQUEE! Still, it’s a little early to be calling Tommy Hiddles “the Next Eddie Redmayne.”

As for Crimson Peak, this tweet went out yesterday:

CRIMSON PEAK comic-con panel in Hall H will feature Guillermo Del Toro, @twhiddleston, @jes_chastain and Mia Wasikowska. Can’t wait for this

— Steven Weintraub (@colliderfrosty) July 1, 2015

I suspect that this is true. I suspect that Crimson Peak’s presence in Hall H – the biggest “get” of Comic Con – is more about Guillermo del Toro than Hiddleston. Del Toro is utterly beloved by Comic Con geeks, so it’s going to be mostly about him. But Hiddles helps.

And finally, some weird/bad news. In a few months, Tom was about to start filming on Kong: Skull Island – which will serve as some kind of prequel to the traditional King Kong films we already have – and two of Tom’s big-name costars have just tapped out suddenly.

Universal and Legendary Pictures will have to do without an Oscar winner and an Oscar nominee. Because, thanks to a change in the filming schedule, both J.K. Simmons and Michael Keaton have had to leave Kong: Skull Island. That means Tom Hiddleston is, at least for the immediate future, the only person set to charter a voyage to the giant ape-inhabited isle, though the producers and director Jordan Vogt-Roberts are already out in the wilds with giant casting nets looking to capture two new co-stars.

The film finds a team of explorers venturing deep into the island’s jungles in search of its mysterious creatures and, most likely, getting much more than they bargained for. Universal, in turn, will be hoping that the presence of huge beasts lumbering around an island threatening to eat people will bring the Jurassic World crowd out.

Vogt-Roberts was originally planning to kick off production in the autumn, but that has now moved back a few weeks to closer to the end of the year. According to Deadline the film’s release plan (March 10, 2017 currently here) shouldn’t be affected. Both of the actors are in demand at the moment: Keaton (his voice at least) is on screens in Minions and he’s worked on Spotlight and The Founder. Simmons is in Terminator Genisys, which is just arriving now, and he’s part of Worlds Apart, The Accountant, Meddler, Kung Fu Panda 3, The Lake and thriller TV series Counterpart.

[From Empire]

The thing about JK Simmons is that I will always believe that he’s a busy man, Oscar or no Oscar. JK works constantly and always has – he’s one of America’s greatest character actors and he has no ego about where and how he works (TV projects, indie films, studio films). I could buy that he had a scheduling conflict. But taken with Keaton’s departure at the same time, I have to wonder if it’s not so much about scheduling and more like this is a really troubled production.

Photos courtesy of Instagram, Fame/Flynet.