A Geeky Viewpoint

The Justice League of America

Man of Steel courtesy impawards.com

Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice courtesy impawards.com

The Cast of the Suicide Squad - courtesy Warner Bros.

The third movie in the DC Comic Book Universe, Suicide Squad is already being filmed and the information, leaks and images so far that have shown up on the interweb have meet very mixed reviews from the fan base.  

Bloodshot Courtesy Valiant Entertainment

Valiant
Sony Pictures Entertainment recently signed a five movie deal with Valiant Entertainment to bring five linked movies to the screen from Valiant's comic book titles.  

The first film, Bloodshot, is being directed by same duo that brought us John Wick, David Leitch and Chad Stahelski, and being produced by Matthew Vaughn (Kick Ass, X-Men: First Class).    Bloodshot is about a shape shifting super soldier who has been brought back from the dead to continue to kick ass and forget about taking names.

No one is officially attached to direct or produce the second film Harbringer, a film about a runaway with psychic abilities who comes into conflict with the Harbringer Foundation.
Both films are scheduled to have sequels before colliding in Avenger style crossover film to conclude the story line.

Thomas Rothman, the new man in charge at Sony Picture Entertainment [SPE] is known as a penny pincher and hands on executive.  The deal with Valiant Entertainment clearly allows SPE to build a comic universe to compete against Disney, 20th Century Fox and Universal without throwing down large sums of money. 

With the duo of David Leitch and Chad Stahelski directing and Michael Vaughn producing its pretty clear at this point that SPE intends these movies to be at a minimum a very hard core PG-13 if not rated R, my guess is the latter of those two choices.   Rated R movies typically are less expensive to produce however the potential at the box office is greatly reduced. 

Zack Stentz, "A" writer from Thor talks to the creators of the Honest Trailer.

I saw this on Marvel Cinematic Universe group on Facebook, it is too good not to share.

Avengers: Age of Ultron has been released now for two weeks domestically and three weeks in many international markets, so as an exercise in fun where would it be placed in my 2015 Marvel Film Rankings.


Avengers: Age of Ultron

The Marvel family gets just a little bit bigger. http://t.co/0PnXdLhGTP @captainamerica #CivilWar

— Mark Ruffalo (@MarkRuffalo) May 14, 2015

An interesting tweet from Mark Ruffalo, is he suggesting that Bruce Banner and maybe the Hulk will appear in the forth coming Captain America: Civil War film or that someone else is or that he is going to the after party...  Well I know what my choice is.

Spoiler Alert.   At the end of Avengers: Age of Ultron the Hulk meekly sits in a Quinjet as it flies away from the destruction in the aftermath of the film.   

William Hurt (Incredible Hulk) has signed on to reprise his role as General Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross, a character that has hunted the Hulk for years in the comics.  No word on whether Liv Tyler (Incredible Hulk) or Jennifer Connelly (Hulk) may reprise their role as Betty Ross, Bruce Banner's love interest.

Multiple Social media reports suggest that Asa Butterfield is in final negotiations to play Peter Parker/Spider-Man.

A Deadline exclusive yesterday announced that 20th Century Fox has signed The Fault in Our Stars director Josh Boone to direct a X-Men spin-off X-Men: The New Mutants.

The Fault in Our Stars was a surprise hit of 2014, the movie made on a shoestring budget of $12 Million earned $307 Million world wide and stared breakout actors Shailene Woodley, Ansel Elgort and Nat Wolff all of whom have been eyed for multiple roles within the over arching Marvel Cinematic Universe.   Shailene Woodley actually filmed multiple scenes as Mary Jane Watson for the Amazing Spider-Man 2; however all of her scenes were cut from the movie.  

The New Mutants, created by Chris Claremont and artist Bob McLeod originally appeared in the 1982 Graphic Novel #4 which spawned their own comic book series in 1983.

The New Mutants was a team of teenage mutants from the Xavier Institute represented a diverse ethnicity of characters from Brazilian Sunspot, Cheyenne Indian - Mirage, Vietnamese - Karma, as well as a Kentuckian - Cannonball and Scotsmen - Wolfsbane.   

The New Mutants were opposed by a rival group of teenage mutants known as the Hellions, a younger generation of the Hell Fire Club.

The New Mutants ran from 1983 to 1991, were relaunched in 2003 for 13 comic book series before being merged into New X-Men: Academy X  and a third volume in 2009 and ran until December 2012.

Ava DuVernay, the Oscar nominated director of Selma has been linked to the Director's chair for the upcoming Marvel Studios film, Black Panther.

It is important to note that no public announcement has yet been made, rather several social media reports are suggesting the director is very close to signing on to direct a Marvel Studios film.   Reading between the lines on these reports it is easy to read into them Black Panther. 

The Wrap broke this story late yesterday and it will continue to develop for the next several days I am sure.

Season 3 logo

Some Information on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the potential spinoffs was released today as ABC announced its TV lineup for next season.


 The Official Synopsis of Season 3 of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has been released by ABC Television today.

Director Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) embarks on a deadly new secret mission to protect the world from new threats in the wake of SHIELD's wars with Hydra and a rogue faction of Inhumans.

Returning "SHIELD" cast members include Clark Gregg as Phil Coulson, Ming-Na Wen as Melinda May, Brett Dalton as Grant Ward, Chloe Bennet as Skye, Iain De Caestecker as Leo Fitz, Elizabeth Henstridge as Jemma Simmons, Nick Blood as Lance Hunter and Adrianne Palicki as Bobbi Morse.

"Marvel's Agents of SHIELD" will keep its 9 p.m. Tuesday night time slot in the fall. "Agent Carter" will again fill in "SHIELD's" midseason hiatus in the same time slot.

Paul Lee President of ABC Television Entertainment added some information on the two potential Spinoffs and Stand Alone Project.

 “We absolutely love those characters on S.H.I.E.L.D. We think S.H.I.E.L.D. hit its creative stride this year.” He continued “We thought the right thing now is to leave them on S.H.I.E.L.D., because S.H.I.E.L.D. is so strong on the moment.”

It is pretty clear that he and others in the ABC Television Entertainment office felt that keeping Nick Blood and Adrianne Palicki on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. created a stronger product that two separate shows, at least for now.
I did not believe for a second that the Mockingbird and Hunter was DOA rather that the timing was suspect and I feel vindicated on that regard. 

When Lee was questioned on the potential John Ridley project he responded:

“I can’t talk about the John Ridley one, other than to say that he’s working on it.”

No one was really surprised yesterday when the brass at ABC Television renewed Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. for a third season; however it was a different story when Agent Carter was renewed for a second season. 

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. being renewed for a third season usually guarantees that the show will be renewed for a fourth season, the statistic is like 95% of shows that get a third season get a fourth season as well, and typically a third season also indicates a fifth season.   Again the statistic on broadcast TV is above 75%, cable is a different story.    An example of this phenomenon is when ABC renewed Nashville for a fourth season even though its numbers dropped considerably in season 3.

Agent Carter

Agent Carter getting renewed was a surprise too many as the show greatly underperformed as far as a broadcast TV shows go and continued to lose audience share as the 8 part series progressed.   The show starring Hayley Atwell as Agent Peggy Carter in the early days of the Strategic Scientific Reserve (SSR), a precursor to S.H.I.E.L.D. in the Marvel Universe.   A show that underperformed and is getting renewed is a decent indicator that change is coming to the format of the show, expect to hear more on the changes in the next week as ABC announces it TV lineup on Tuesday May 12th.

Mockingbird and Agent Hunter

The news for Marvel TV shows was not all good, the proposed spinoff of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. starring Adrianna Palicki (Bobbi Morse/Mockingbird) and Nick Blood (Lance Hunter) has been dropped for at least this season.   Word has it that while ABC is interested in the giving the duo their own show the brass at ABC was very worried what removing two popular characters from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. would do to that shows audience.
  
The second Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. spinoff, which is being helmed by John Ridley (12 Years a Slave, American Crime) is still being worked upon but with American Crime being renewed for a second season it muddies the waters on how much work can be done on that show.

Season 1 Cast

With the success of ABC Studios / Netflix Daredevil one must wonder what changes are coming to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. for next season.  Does Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. move into the cursed 10 EST /9 Central time slot and take a darker tone, moving from TV-PG to TV-14 certificate (similar to Movie Ratings) to become more gritty.   Will the show focus on the secondary Super Heroes and their interaction with S.H.I.E.L.D. leading up to Captain America: Civil War will more MCU stars make an appearance on the show?  Will the show get a bigger budget for special effects?   How will the show focus on Bobbi Morse and Lance Hunter, what about Skye?


On a side note I am disappointed in ABC for not renewing Forever starring Ioan Gruffield (Fantastic Four, Fantastic Four: Rise fo the Silver Surfer) as a supernatural Medical Examiner in New York with a unique form of immortality.  For the record I was disappointed when Fox cancelled Amsterdam a show with a similar premise.   With two similar procedure shows (Castle, Elementry) renewed for next season it appears that ABC was concerned that there was no way to raise the ratings for the Warner Brothers Studio production.   Early indicators are suggesting that other outlets maybe interested in the show. 

No word on Fox's X-Men TV series, however with the issues on the license for the IP I don't expect to hear anything.

In a story on Deadline, Jonathan Levine (Warm Bodies), Ted Melfi (St. Vincent), Jason Moore (Pitch Perfect), Jared Hess (Napoleon Dynamite) and John Francis Daley and Jonathan M. Goldstein (Vacation) are on the very short list for directing the next Spider-Man live action film, with a decision set to be announced by the end of next week.

I have to be brutally honest, at first I thought it was a joke, I mean Drew Goddard was supposedly directing the film already, but I guess with a new notoriously tight wad sherriff in town at SPE, Tom Rothman, maybe...   So I thought about it some more, threw up a little bit in my mouth, and then wondered how bad is the next live action Spider-Man movie going to be.

Let me take a step back, I have long advocated that Andrew Garfield reprise his role as Spider-Man in the Avengers film, and I still do, and than have SPE back fill Miles Morales and Cindy Moon or Mayday Parker into standalone Spider-Man films, I still think that is the way to go there.   

With a list of five actors I don't think could act their way out of wet paper bag (which may or may not be there fault by the way as they have not had the greatest material to work with); Nat Wolff (The Fault in Our Stars), Asa Butterfield (Ender’s Game), Tom Holland (In The Heart of The Sea), Timothee Chalamet (Interstellar) and Liam James (The Killing), were proposed on the short list and then we add this list of directors, I really feel no one at SPE or Marvel has a clue at this point. 

How do you feel?

Marvel Studios announced that celebrated actor martin Freeman will be joining the cast of next year's Captain America: Civil War.  

Martin Freeman's role in the movie has not been announced but Marvel Studio's President Kevin Feige raved "[His] range from the dramatic to the comedic has consistently impressed us," adding that the studio "couldn't be more honored or excited to have such a talented actor join the Marvel Cinematic Universe."

David Ayer tweeted out an image from the upcoming Suicide Squad. 

From left to right are Adam Beach as Slipknot, Jai Courtney as Captain Boomerang, Cara Delevingne as Enchantress, Karen Fukuhara (kneeling) as Katana, Joel Kinnaman as Rick Flagg, Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, Will Smith as Deadshot, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as Killer Croc and Jay Hernandez as El Diablo.

My prediction of $217 to $221 was a little off as the movie earned an estimated $188 Million for the weekend.

What happened...

The first question is Audience Fatigue, did it factor in?
The next question is this a trend?

How much did a crowded Sports Weekend factor in, what about the nice weather, bad word of mouth?

Let's start with the busy and unusually "interesting" sports weekend.   There is little doubt that with everything happening on Saturday it hurt the movie at the box office, most guess suggest 5% to 10% lost with NBA game 7's, Kentucky Derby, PPV Boxing and high viewership of NHL games.   That change is between $6 and $12 Million in lost revenue. 

Good Weather over the weekend, it should be noted the Original was released on a weekend of bad weather, also hurt attendance.  For some it was a deciding factor in attending, a spot of rain across the US probably would have saw 5% increase in the box office across America.    

Here is my answer:


Sony 4K 55" TV

The NFL and MLB are struggling to get fans to come to the games, one of the most cited reasons for peoples reluctance to go, new HD TVs.   That's what I have in my TV viewing room (Home Theater).  It clearly impacts the number of films I go see in the theater, I can think of two recent films I decided to wait until I rented the Blu-Ray, it also impacts the number times I see films in the theater, so instead of seeing Avengers: Age of Ultron four times in the theater, the same number as Marvel's The Avengers I probably will see Age of Ultron twice.   Considering I take two and sometimes four people with me, that's $40 to $80 in lost revenue. 

As for the other two a key factor is to watch the numbers for the next two weeks, Avengers earned $400 M in the first two weeks.   If the casual viewers was concerned about crowds at the theaters and decided to stay away for the Weekend the Age of Ultron numbers will match Avengers.   If Age of Ultron isn't in that $370 M range by Friday May 15th, than there will be reason for concern.

If Josh Trank wasn't having a bad enough weekend, after getting fired from Directing the Star Wars Anthology Film on Friday, 20th Century Fox has removed him from directing the sequel to this year's Fantastic Four film, due in 2017. 

Now officially he was only "attached" to the director's chair, legalese, so he wasn't necessarily fired, but its clear he will not be directing the sequel, if it happens at all.

The Hollywood Reporter posts a story suggesting the Josh Trank was indeed fired by Lucas Films.   Josh Trank was set to direct the second Anthology Film, insiders suggest his behavior well directing Fantastic Four were a major issue.

From the Hollywood Reporter Story

Indeed, producers on Fantastic Four, set for release July 30, are said to have faced great challenges pulling the film together given behavior described by one insider as “erratic” and at times “very isolated.” Trank did not offer clear direction, this person adds, saying, "If you've got someone who can't answer questions or who isn't sure or is in hiding, that's not good."

At multiple points during filming of the Fantastic Four rumors of Josh Trank's demise have littered the internet, 20th Century Fox has attempted to suggest they were unfounded rumors, unfortunately Josh Trank leaving the Star Wars Film is like adding Napalm to a Fire in that regard.

I never thought writing a movie review was going to be this difficult.

I like the film but (that's a very big but) was extremely disappointed as I felt it should have been so much better than it was.   Those are two very different emotions that arise within me from seeing this film.

Two films slammed together, mercilessly trimmed down in length by well over an hour that force feeds the story to the audience.

Exceptional Cinematography, sound, music, score....   

So many missed opportunities

One of the best Cameos by Stan Lee