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Just my freakin’ luck…
The big news today is that Disney has gone ahead and bought the Fox entertainment division. It’s all over the news. Here’s a big link explaining it all. This is a huge deal, most importantly for me and you because it means the X-Men and Fantastic Four are now under the control of Marvel Studios. At long last, these two major franchises can join the Marvel Cinematic Universe! Just in time for the Avengers actors to retire now that their contracts are up!
Of course, knowing my luck, this big news — years in the making — has only arrived after Fox announced a freakin’ Multiple Man movie! Come on!
You had hope, but that’s gone now
Multiple Man is my all-time favorite superhero and comic book character. The idea that Fox would devote resources to a full-on Multiple Man solo movie was impossible to imagine only a few short weeks ago. But then Fox goes ahead and announces that James Franco is going to make the movie and star. It’s a literal dream come true, and for the first time in my life, I was glad that the X-Men are their own separate film entity and can make movies like Multiple Man.
So of course, immediately after this movie announcement, Disney finally gets the rights back for the X-Men in movies.
God dammit. This is just my freakin’ luck!
And just like when Disney acquired Star Wars and shut down the various video games and TV shows in production, I have to imagine they’re going to put a lot of in-development X-Men projects on the cutting block. And the Multiple Man movie is in its infancy, so there’s no reason to let it go forward.
Of course this is all happening. I just can’t have nice things.
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X-Men: Apocalypse Trailer Does Its Thing
Apparently, this is the week for movie trailers — possibly making sure all the big trailers get out and go ahead of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. That thing is apparently attracting movie trailers like a moth to flame.
Anyway, here is the first trailer for X-Men: Apocalypse, and, well…I dunno. I wasn’t impressed.
I enjoyed Days of Future Past just fine, but it was hardly a break out movie for me. I think the X-Men franchise has just been around for so long that they kind of just put out perfectly acceptable and enjoyable films now. There’s nothing really new they’re going to show us. And there isn’t anything particularly interesting about their Apocalypse, at least not in this trailer. He doesn’t sound very menacing, and how many times have we seen that same trope of a new, ancient villain revealing themselves to have been Jesus, Buddha and the rest?
The Four Horsemen mostly came off as silly, like the movie had to make a point to acknowledge them. They’re all mutants we’ve seen before. Mystique seems to be stuck in Jennifer Lawrence mode, because of course.
Plus, this might just be me, but I don’t particularly buy Sophie Turner as an actor. That’s probably on me.
So there we have it, folks. This week, I liked the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles trailer more than I liked the new X-Men trailer. Glob help me.
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FOX is Never, Ever Letting Go of the X-Men Franchise; Ever
Announced by Deadline out of the blue this afternoon, FOX has hired director Josh Boone to make a New Mutants moving, likely spinning out of the ongoing X-Men franchise. Boone rose to prominence as director of the hugely popular The Fault in Our Stars movie, so he knows a thing or two about teenage drama.
Why not X-New-Mutants? Keep the brand alive!
New Mutants was a comic that first launched in the early 1980s as a spin-off of the X-Men. It was about a new class of young mutants at Charles Xavier’s mutant school, and introduced characters like Cannonball, Wolfsbane, Boom Boom, Cypher and a few others, many of whom have not been in the X-Men films yet.
There’s no word yet on characters or plot. So maybe some of those comic book accurate characters will debut, or considering the next film, X-Men: Apocalypse, is set in the 1980s, perhaps this new film will spin off of the teenage mutants introduced in that movie. We’re going to meet teenage versions of Cyclops, Jean Grey and Jubilee, among likely others. So if I had to guess, I bet FOX is going to take those actors (including Game of Thrones’ Sophie Turner) and give them their own movie. I highly doubt FOX is going to be too comic book accurate to the original New Mutants title when they can just sign Sophie Turner and her comrades up for another film.
Suffice to say, between this movie, Apocalypse, Deadpool and that supposed X-Force movie, FOX is never, ever letting go of the X-Men franchise. I’m largely OK with that.
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Fantastic Foul: Why I Believe the F4 Comic Controversy
If you haven’t heard, the latest rumor circulating the comic book blogosphere is that Marvel plans to put their Fantastic Four comics on hiatus while FOX Studios limps into making their new Fantastic Four reboot. The idea is that Marvel and Disney executives don’t want to give the rival studio any help whatsoever in building a new franchise off of one of Marvel’s properties. The website Bleeding Cool kicked off the rumor mill last week, claiming inside sources at Marvel gave them the tip, and citing evidence from sketch card artists who had been told to steer clear of any F4 related characters.
Marvel Big Wig Editor Tom Brevoort has so far been the only Marvel guy to respond to the controversy, giving it a firm denial.
But here’s the thing: I totally believe Bleeding Cool’s story. I don’t have any special insight, I don’t know any more than anybody else about this whole shebang, I just really think it’s possible that some Marvel/Disney executive might be petty enough to cut off the company’s nose to spite its face.
Executives are the true super-villains
I know I’m just another Internet idiot with a blog, and you’ve got no reason to believe anything I say. But this is turning out to be a pretty big deal, and I figured I had some time to spare to write up my own thoughts. A lot of people seem to be siding against Bleeding Cool and their scoop, and that’s fine. Everybody’s free to their opinion.
But I think Bleeding Cool might be on to something here.
Join me after the jump to find out why. And please feel free to share your own thoughts in the comments!
Henchman-4-Hire 