Category Archives: Movies
A Day of Hobbit Humor!
The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug comes out today, and I’ll be seeing it in my local multiplex tomorrow. So for now, why not enjoy some much loved Internet parody-artists taking the previous movies down a few notches? Here is the Honest Trailer for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.
All credit goes to the Screen Junkies for that awesomeness. And tune in later today for Everything Wrong with the Lord of the Rings trilogy!
The Venom and Sinister Six Films Are Now Official
No sooner do I stun the world with my List of Six of potential Spider-Man spin-off movies than Sony Pictures rushes out a hurried press release about their plans for Venom and Sinister Six movies. Coincidence? I think it’s safe to say ‘no’. Clearly someone at Sony reads my blog, and after I set the Internet on fire with my suggestions, that someone realized they had to catch up.
Because that’s totally how things happen.
Stay classy, guys
Anyway, I don’t like to comment on movies at this stage of the game, where the studios have only announced a writer and director, because how often does that actually go somewhere? How many DC superhero films have been announced over the past few years? Justice League Dark? Lobo? The Metal Men? Please. If any of those movies ever get made, I’ll eat my hat. But Sony have already got Amazing Spider-Man 2 coming down the pipe, and this press release announces Amazing Spider-Man 3, so maybe they really want to expand this franchise a lot more. It’s a wonderful idea, at least.
Here’s the full press release for those interested:
In a move to forge a new legacy in the story of Peter Parker on screen, Sony Pictures Entertainment, in association with Marvel Entertainment, is developing several new projects in the Spider-Man franchise, with Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, Jeff Pinkner, Ed Solomon, and Drew Goddard to collaborate on overseeing the developing story over several films that will be produced by Avi Arad and Matt Tolmach, it was announced today by Doug Belgrad,president of Columbia Pictures, and Hannah Minghella, president of Production for the studio.
The five writers, along with the two producers and Marc Webb, have formed a franchise brain trust to expand the universe for the brand and to develop a continuous tone and thread throughout the films. Under the deals, the studio announced that Kurtzman & Orci & Pinkner are writing the screenplay for The Amazing Spider-Man 3, which the studio hopes Webb will return to direct; the film will go into production next fall for release on June 10, 2016. In addition, the team will build on the cinematic foundation laid by Webb, Arad, and Tolmach in the first two movies. They will expand the franchise as Kurtzman & Orci & Solomon will write the screenplay for Venom, which Kurtzman will direct; also, Goddard will write, with an eye to direct, The Sinister Six, focusing on the villains in the franchise. Hannah Minghella and Rachel O’Connor will oversee the development and production of these films for the studio.
In tapping these five writers, the studio and the producers are guiding the future of the franchise with the writer/producers who have each played significant and key roles in developing such highly successful franchises, films, and series as Star Trek, Transformers, “Alias,” “Fringe,” Men
in Black, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, World War Z, “Lost,” Cloverfield, The Cabin in the Woods, and Marvel’s upcoming “Daredevil” series.Commenting on the announcement, Belgrad said, “The Spider-Man film franchise is one of our studio’s greatest assets. We are thrilled with the creative team we have assembled to delve more deeply into the world that Marc, Avi and Matt have begun to explore in The Amazing Spider-Man and The Amazing Spider-Man 2. We believe that Marc, Alex, and Drew have uniquely exciting visions for how to expand the Spider-Man universe in each of these upcoming films.” Arad and Tolmach added, “This collaboration was born out of the great experience we and Marc had working with Alex, Bob, and Jeff on The Amazing Spider-Man 2. With more than fifty years’ wealth of stories in the comic books to draw upon for inspiration, the Spider-Man universe is truly boundless; in addition, the Spider-Man comics have the greatest rogues gallery of any series, and to have the chance to explore that on film is truly thrilling. Until now, we have approached each film as a separate, self-contained entity, but with this move, we have the opportunity to grow the franchise by looking to the future as we develop a continuous arc for the story. That is what Alex, Bob, Jeff, Ed, and Drew will do in this unprecedented collaboration, and we’re excited about the directions they are taking the character and the world.”
The most successful franchise in the history of Columbia Pictures, Spider-Man is embraced all over the world. The four Spider-Man films to date have taken in over $3.2 billion worldwide.
Spider-Man, Venom, The Sinister Six and other Spider-Man related characters are licensed to Sony by Marvel Entertainment.
The only name on there that I recognize is Drew Goddard, the guy who teamed up with Joss Whedon to make Cabin in the Woods. He’s also been put in charge of the Daredevil show on Netflix. The guy gets around, it seems, and probably has one of my dream jobs. How come everybody else always seems to have my dream job and not me?
Also, here’s a throwback to my earlier blogging: My chosen Sinister Six.
6 Potential Spider-Man Movie Spin-Offs
Spider-Man has one of the best casts in comics, including everyone from the skinflint publisher J. Jonah Jameson to diabolical masterminds like Doctor Octopus, Green Goblin and Aunt May (keep an eye on that one). Which is probably why executives at Sony Pictures said recently that they want to make a ton of spin-off movies starring other characters. And who can blame them?
Adorable but deadly
Of course, me being the plucky young geek that I am, I have a few ideas that could help them out. If there’s one thing I know in this world, it’s Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends. So why don’t you fun folks join me after the jump to hear some of my ideas. And I would love to hear some of yours in the comments!
I Do Not Want an X-Men/Fantastic Four Movie Crossover
Ever since the monumental success of Marvel’s The Avengers movie – to the tune of 1.5 billion dollars – all of the other studios are scrambling to make team-up movies as well. Because when something succeeds in Hollywood, everyone else wants to do that exact thing (hence the 3D craze). The sequel to Man of Steel is now going to feature both Batman and Wonder Woman, with rumors of even more Justice League cameos.
But making even less sense is the desire of FOX Studios to put their X-Men and rebooted Fantastic Four franchises into a shared universe. I may just be another nerd angrily ranting on the Internet, but I have zero interest in this coming to pass.
Abomination!
First of all, this reeks of studio manipulation, and I don’t like studio manipulations. Marvel and Disney pulled off a masterstroke combining their Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and Hulk movies into The Avengers, and FOX wants that same success regardless of how much sense it makes.
And that’s the second thing, it doesn’t make any sense! The X-Men and Fantastic Four don’t have anything to do with one another! In the history of comics, the two teams have barely said two words to each other. They live in entirely different corners of the Marvel Universe, dealing with entirely different themes. The X-Men use super-powers as a metaphor for minorities. The Fantastic Four use super-powers to go on awesome adventures, pushing the envelope of science fiction and fantasy.
Get back to your own sides!
But I’ll never be able to convince a studio of this. Heck, I probably can’t even convince some of you reading this. But it’s my rant, and I’m gonna rant it.
What point would it serve? Money, obviously. That’s the only answer studios care about. But Marvel Studios just seems above all of that nonsense. Yes, they want to make money too, but they seem to have integrity. They took their time with the Thor and Captain America films instead of rushing to the Avengers after the success of Iron Man. They’re taking their time to build up their movieverse, taking risks on films like Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man. But FOX is just churning out superhero films helter skelter. We all know that if they stop making X-Men and Fantastic Four movies, then the rights will revert back to Marvel and Disney.
And as much as I liked X-Men: First Class, I can’t imagine ‘quality’ is at the forefront of FOX’s plans.
They made the first two Fantastic Four films, after all.
They gave the world this
Storywise, what possible sense would it make to combine the X-Men and Fantastic Four films? Unless FOX plans to make the rebooted Fantastic Four into mutants, what could they possibly have to do with the X-Men? It’s not like the movie X-Men are superheroes. Not in the way the Fantastic Four are superheroes. What are they going to do? Team up to take down a partnership between Dr. Doom and Magneto? How could the massive, sprawling, time-traveling plot of the X-Men films possibly lead to them teaming up with the Fantastic Four? Why saddle a rebooted Fantastic Four onto the X-Men instead of letting them stand alone?
Neither team has any business being subservient to the other. Neither team has any business being in a movie together.
Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should.
Still, I’d probably watch it.
Henchman-4-Hire 