The biggest news, as Cullen posted on our chat board, is that not only is Godzilla 2 a go (the film will hit the $500 worldwide million mark this weekend, so it’s not a megahit, but certainly hitting profitability now). Sadly, it will be a while, because Gareth Edwards will return as director, and he’ll be shooting one of Disney’s Star Wars spinoff movies first. The BIG news, however, is that Toho was happy enough with the first one to allow the franchise to use Rodan, Mothra and Ghidorah (or Ghidrah, as I knew him back in the day) in the second one. Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! With that line-up this film could be significantly bigger than the first one.
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Legendary Pictures, the makers of Godzilla, is also fast-tracking a Skull Island movie, shooting for November 2016. Maybe they are rushing this one to keep the giant monster vibe going until the return of Godzilla. Anyway, it’s set on the island home of King Kong, this would be a (hopefully) period sort of a Jurassic Park sort of thing, I’d think, with more adventure (i.e., fun gunplay) than Spielberg allows now, which is none. Apparently Kong will be in it, if not necessarily the primary focus.
Joe Cornish of Attack the Block, a great movie, has been offered the assignment, but it’s early days and he’s a hot property right now. I also hope they just don’t have the budget to do the sort of oversized set pieces that Peter Jackson gave us in his Kong film. I know some people loved that stuff, but that dino stampede scene was one of the top five worst sequences I’ve seen in a movie in the last 20 years, and the three T-Rexes scene left me a bit cold.
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Legendary is also producing Guillermo del Toro’s period (yay!) ghost story pic Crimson Peak, del Toro’s Pacific Rim 2 and a non-Toro Descent-like picture, As Above, So Below. Crimson Peak sounds like it’s intending to take a page from (the real) The Haunting, and if anyone can recapture that’s films creepy vibe, it’s del Toro. One person who saw the teaser trailer described it as Jane Eyre-meets-Edgar Allen Poe. Sounds good to me.
Legendary is also doing a Michael Mann directed cyberthriller Blackhat, starring Chris Hemsworth. You gotta like that. They are also making a Warcraft film, which means absolutely nothing to me, but I’m sure is very exciting to many.
Legendary is certainly trying to stake out the horror and monster genres. Del Toro is still pushing for fan support for his old aborted Lovecraft movie, At the Mountains of Madness, too. I guess if Legendary has a string of real successes they may take a flier. Del Toro’s never really had a hugely successful film, though, so it would help if he cranked one out, given Mountains of Madness’ bandied giant budget. Also, if Pacific Rim 2 pans out, there’s also a chance at least for Hellboy 3.
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George Miller has a new Mad Max movie coming out, not sure if it’s a reboot or a remake or whatever. I’m sure it will be hugely successful, much like that recent Robocop reboot. Apparently the trailer indicates a lot of the car stunts will be done via CGI. Kind of misses the point, I’m thinking.
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I’m sure Marvel’s living with it OK, but DC continues to kick Marvel’s butt in the smaller venue of TV programming. Perhaps Agents of SHIELD (which Lucy Lawless will be joining) will get its act together in the second season and maybe, maybe, get an audience to come back and give it a second shot. And there are the Netflix shows coming up, although those aren’t network programs. It would certainly help if those were very good. In the meantime, DC dominates with Green Arrow, a new Flash show, NBC’s Constantine (that’s the one I’d most like to be good), and Fox’s James Gordon, pre-Batman prequel Gotham.
Oddly, I think the potential problem for the Constantine show is the opposite one from the dreadful former SyFy show based on the Harry Dresden novel character. Dresden is a powerful wizard in the books, but they didn’t have the budget for that, so he was more of a trickster. Constantine, meanwhile, has always been a trickster and a bluffer more than a major power, but with a big network budget, they may amp him up significantly. Of course, he’s also a big of a real bastard at times, and I really doubt we’ll see that aspect of him either. Oh, and of course he can’t smoke now. Yeesh with this stuff.
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Speaking of Constantine and (yeesh!) Guillermo del Toro, del Toro will supposedly also be somehow finding the time to make a DC “dark universe” movie. Sayeth del Toro: “I’m still working on it,” del Toro said. “Sandman doesn’t figure in the Dark Universe. We have Deadman, we have the Demon, we have Swamp Thing, we have Zatana, we have Constantine, but DC and Warners have been very clear that they are trying to keep those properties separate so when the time comes they can unite them, once they know they’re quantifiable. Batman, Superman, Green Lantern… everyone eventually will come together. Right now, they’re allowing us independence.”
Apparently this Constantine won’t be in continuity with the TV one, so maybe Constantine will smoke, although that’s an automatic ‘R’ rating these days. Really. That’s an actual thing now.
Oh, del Toro is also shepherding a cable TV show based on the trilogy of novels he cowrote, The Stain. Guillermo del Toro, the laziest man in show business.
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Speaking of DC TV shows, they have finally announced specs on the looooooooooooooooooooong awaited release of the old Adam West show. Neat!!! Oh, except the retail price for the three season DVD set is $200 dollars (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and for the spiffy Blu Ray set, with a little toy Batmobile, it’s $270. Really. Of course, discounts will knock those prices down to a much more affordable $150 and $190, respectively. Warners, you suck.
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Marvel, meanwhile, was hawking Agents of SHIELD, a Guardians of the Galaxy cartoon show and their Peggy Carter series (a show about the 1946, post-war origins of SHIELD, starring Captain America’s WWII flame, and tying in nicely with the modern show). Not a lot on the five (!) connected Marvel Netflix shows. Luckily I believe Marvel is too savvy to just sell them the rights and just walk away. It would be terrible for Marvel if those shows were crappy.
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More importantly, Marvel has staked out theatrical release dates through 2019, up to three a year (!), many being just empty slots at this time. Both Thor 2 and Captain America 2 did well enough to prompt sequels. Robert Downey Jr. costs so much, though, that I’m not sure they’ll want to go with Iron Man 4 as opposed to just using him in Avengers movies. Avengers 2 is due out next year, and I can’t imagine there won’t be an Avengers 3 come about 2017. Other projects we can count on include Ant-Man, a Doctor Strange movie (the name being bandied about was Joaquin Phoenix) and Guardians of the Galaxy 2. Unless the first one bombs, which seems unlikely given how fun it looks. I guess we’ll find out this weekend.
Here’s what I’ve seen so far:
May 1, 2015 – Avengers: Age of Ultron
July 17, 2015 – Ant-Man
May 6, 2016 – Captain America 3
July 8, 2016 – Untitled Marvel Studios Film
May 5, 2017 – Untitled Marvel Studios Film
July 28, 2017 – Untitled Marvel Studios Film
November 3, 2017 – Untitled Marvel Studios Film
May 4, 2018 – Untitled Marvel Studios Film
July 6, 2018 – Untitled Marvel Studios Film
November 2, 2018 – Untitled Marvel Studios Film
May 3, 2019 – Untitled Marvel Studios Film
Please note, those are just Marvel Studio movies, and hence doesn’t cover the Marvel characters owned by other studios; Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, etc. And of course Disney, who owns Marvel, will be also releasing a slew of Star Wars movies, another franchise they now own, along with Pixar films, their fifty Pirates of the Caribbean flick in 2017, and other general Disney movies…..
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Speaking of, the next Spider-Man film will be pushed back to 2018 (!), a move perhaps motivated by the fact nobody really liked the last one. However, I think there will be a movie centered on Spider-Man’s core ‘Sinister Six’ villains in late 2016.
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DC has released a picture of the dainty Wonder Woman for their upcoming Batman v. Superman movie. Meh. The costume isn’t embarrassing, though. Obviously this trio will draw ticket buyers, but I just can’t help believing that if audiences in general find this as unsatisfying as most found Man of Steel, that the entire DC comics movie universe will go down in flames. DC, take a page from Marvel and make this movie fun. Radical idea, I know. Anyway, I’m not really invested in this anyway.
By the way, Batman apparently has lit up white mask eyes in the trailer. Not sure this goes with his whole invisible ninja schtick, but what do I know? Still, if they focus on looking cool rather than making sense, this thing could be a debacle.
And not that it matters, but put me in the ‘who cares?’ category re: Ben Affleck. Anybody who’s the right type can play Batman. Affleck will make a decent Bruce Wayne, which is all that matters. I really don’t think casting is as important to the DC movies as to the Marvel ones. Basically, the more iconic the character, the less it relies on the actor bringing it to life.
Personally, I don’t really care about Warner’s other big pictures either, the third Hobbit movie and Jupiter Ascending. The Hobbit lost me when they turned it into three very, very long movies instead of a nice compact film (or two fairly short movies). Again, not knocking it for others, but not my cup of tea.
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The next Bond movie should be out in November of 2015. Yay!
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The premiere episode of Peter Capaldi’s Doctor Who will get a special event showing or two in theaters, as did the Day of the Doctors special. Neat.
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Will Ferrell and his homie Adam McKay will come together again to produce a Manimal (!!!!!!!!!!) movie. Really. OK, that could be pretty funny, IF they do it right. On the other hand, remember Ferrel’s Land of the Lost movie? No? My point exactly.
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Anyway, there might be more, but I’m exhausted. Add your thoughts or additional tidbits below.
