Superheroes!

[Arakhor]

It remains to be seen what they do with Teela in the new show, given that she will supposedly be taking up the second sword.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Couple of fun bits:

Variety, 21 July 2021 - "‘Black Panther’ Sequel Casts Michaela Coel"



No announcement yet as to who Coel will be playing. I saw the headline and I thought, "Okay, she'd make a good Dora Milaje, or maybe a villain." I'm embarrassed to admit that I didn't think of this until I read it somewhere (I doubt this is who she'll be playing, but it's a fun idea):

Spoiler :

---

Variety, 21 July 2021 - "Kate Beckinsale Wanted an ‘Underworld’-‘Blade’ Crossover Movie"



Anybody else want to see Blade fight a werewolf?

 

[Synobun]

Maybe I need to give Underworld another go. I don't think I've ever managed to sit through an entire movie.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Maybe I need to give Underworld another go. I don't think I've ever managed to sit through an entire movie.

I think I've seen the first two. They're basically The Matrix in the World of Darkness RPG setting (e.g. Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines on PC). They're okay, mainly recommendable for Kate Beckinsale playing the Trinity character and for the scenery-chewing villains, Michael Sheen in the first movie and Tony Curran in the second. I thought Scott Speedman was terribly miscast, though. I didn't buy him and Beckinsale together for a second. The setting and the costuming and so on are fun, if you're into sexy-action-vampire fiction (e.g. Sunglasses After Dark; Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter, etc.), and I think there were some good action scenes. Seeing Bill Nighy and Derek Jacobi in such ridiculousness was kind of fun, too.

If vampire action movies are your thing, I might also suggest Night Watch (2004), which I think was the first Timur Bekmambatov movie released in the US. He later did Wanted (2006) with Angelina Jolie and James McAvoy, which I thought was great. No vampires in that one, though.

 

[Arakhor]

So, I just watched the first episode of the new Masters of the Universe series. The first episode is very reminiscent of the original series (or at least the ones I can remember from that long ago). There's even a rather cringy intro sequence which directly parallels the original opening credits. Lots of the original characters, most of whose names completely escape me now, also show up at various points, looking very similar to how I remember them. Skeletor is played with menacing glee by Mark Hamill and Evil Lynn by Lena Headey, because everyone knows that at least one of the villains has to be British! Allan Oppenheimer, the voice of the original Skeletor (and Ming the Merciless from Defenders of the Earth), makes a brief cameo too. The climax is quite something, though.

Spoiler Massive spoilers for Episode 1 :

Skeletor breaks into Castle Greyskull and almost destroys the universe, finally getting what he's always wanted to, but He-Man redirects the full power of Grayskull into the Sword of Power, whereupon it splits into two, He-Man changes back, and both he and Skeletor disappear entirely. Teela is so infuriated by realising who He-Man has been all this time that she abandons the royal court in disgust, setting up what I presume to be a Teela-centric arc.

So yeah, if you'd pinned your hopes on getting a whole series of He-Man doing his thing, that's obviously not going to happen, but I don't believe for a second that Skeletor and He-Man are gone for long, and given that the Sword of Power is now in two halves, that just screams one each for Teela and Adam (when he returns). The first half of the new series might not make any little boys desperately want to be He-Man, but the writers are clearly setting up a narrative arc and the story will no doubt be all the better for it.

I'd already moved on from He-Man by the time I was eight or nine, so I'm not the person to tell you that the new series has retroactively ruined my childhood. Then again, I probably wouldn't say that even if a bad remake of Thundercats or Defenders of the Earth came about in the future, so hey.

 

[Sommerswerd]

remake of Thundercats

That's already been done, a few years back, in pretty much the same vein as He-Man, Voltron, She-Ra, etc., with that similar animation style.

The main difference was that Lion-O is a teen instead of an adult.

 

[Arakhor]

Didn't that get cancelled after just one season though? I have yet to see it any of it.

 

[Clubber Lang]

Thunder Cats: The Animated Movie Yo...

‘Thundercats’ Movie Revived With ‘Godzilla vs. Kong’ Director Adam Wingard

Thundercats are on the move, again.

“Godzilla vs. Kong” director Adam Wingard is attached to helm a computer-animated adaptation of the beloved 1980s Rankin Bass animated series “Thundercats” for Warner Bros., from a script Wingard will write with frequent collaborator Simon Barrett (“You’re Next,” “The Guest”). Dan Lin of Rideback and Roy Lee of Vertigo, who produced Wingard’s film “Death Note,” were already attached to produce the film with a script by David Coggeshall when Wingard signed on, but Wingard and Barrett are starting fresh.

The original series, which aired from 1985 to 1989, was revived for a single season Cartoon Network in 2011, and then again in 2020 under the title “Thundercats Roar.” But as a feature film, “Thundercats” has been a tricky project to crack for the studio, which has hired a small parade of screenwriters and producers since at least 2007 to bring a movie to life. The underlying story is at once relatively simple — a team of humanoid cat-people (or cat-like humans) like Lion-O, Panthro, and Cheetara fight the evil wizard Mumm-Ra on the planet of Third Earth — and surprisingly complicated, with a mix of technological space sci-fi and swords-and-sorcery fantasy. There’s the mystical blade that holds the Eye of Thundera and the Ancient Spirits of Evil, and then antagonistic aliens like the Mutants of Plun-Darr and the Lunataks.

In an interview with Deadline, which first reported the news, Wingard made clear he is not interested in making a “Cats”-style live-action version of “Thundercats,” and wants instead to take a CGI-approach to the visuals that would embrace the “’80s aesthetic” of the original series.



“I don’t want to reinvent the way they look; I want them to look like Thundercats,” Wingard said. “I want to do a movie you’ve never seen before: A hybrid CGI film that has a hyper-real look and somehow bridges the gap between cartoon and CGI. That’s the starting point.”

 

[Arakhor]

I take that back. Doing a live-action Cats-style version of Thundercats would absolutely make it worse.

 

[EgonSpengler]

A couple of MCU casting rumors, big grain of salt:

Hawkeye casting rumor (has to be considered a spoiler, if it turns out to be true):

Spoiler :

Black Panther casting rumor (not a plot spoiler):

Spoiler :

Michaela Coel will be replacing Letitia Wright in a recasting.

 

[EgonSpengler]

So, I just watched the first episode of the new Masters of the Universe series. The first episode is very reminiscent of the original series (or at least the ones I can remember from that long ago). There's even a rather cringy intro sequence which directly parallels the original opening credits. Lots of the original characters, most of whose names completely escape me now, also show up at various points, looking very similar to how I remember them. Skeletor is played with menacing glee by Mark Hamill and Evil Lynn by Lena Headey, because everyone knows that at least one of the villains has to be British! Allan Oppenheimer, the voice of the original Skeletor (and Ming the Merciless from Defenders of the Earth), makes a brief cameo too. The climax is quite something, though.

Spoiler Massive spoilers for Episode 1 :

Skeletor breaks into Castle Greyskull and almost destroys the universe, finally getting what he's always wanted to, but He-Man redirects the full power of Grayskull into the Sword of Power, whereupon it splits into two, He-Man changes back, and both he and Skeletor disappear entirely. Teela is so infuriated by realising who He-Man has been all this time that she abandons the royal court in disgust, setting up what I presume to be a Teela-centric arc.

So yeah, if you'd pinned your hopes on getting a whole series of He-Man doing his thing, that's obviously not going to happen, but I don't believe for a second that Skeletor and He-Man are gone for long, and given that the Sword of Power is now in two halves, that just screams one each for Teela and Adam (when he returns). The first half of the new series might not make any little boys desperately want to be He-Man, but the writers are clearly setting up a narrative arc and the story will no doubt be all the better for it.

I'd already moved on from He-Man by the time I was eight or nine, so I'm not the person to tell you that the new series has retroactively ruined my childhood. Then again, I probably wouldn't say that even if a bad remake of Thundercats or Defenders of the Earth came about in the future, so hey.

I watched the first episode. Not really my cup of tea, but I do stand behind my spirit-brother Kevin Smith in slapping the whiny babies who think the new show 'ruins' anything. (At first, I wrote "man-babies" and I thought, "hey, how do you know they're all men?" but who am I kidding? of course they're all men. )

 

[Arakhor]

Normally, I'd share your caution, but I think that chances are high that the complainers are overwhelmingly male-focused, yes.

 

[Laurana Kanan]

Well, wasn't He-Man a boys cartoon to begin with? It seems kind of logical that the majority of people that have issues with the new show would be male, no?

 

[EgonSpengler]

The gates have opened on reviews for The Suicide Squad (2021):

Rotten Tomatoes 100% on 47 reviews
Metacritic 77 on 22 reviews

"Now that's how you do it."
"Sometimes, you just need to watch a humanoid shark tear a man in half."
"cunningly scuzzy, disreputable fun."
"DC's best film in years."

I've avoided actually reading any reviews past the blurbs, but at least one compared it to Deadpool.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Well, wasn't He-Man a boys cartoon to begin with? It seems kind of logical that the majority of people that have issues with the new show would be male, no?

Okay, let's go with that.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I'd forgotten that Jeffrey Wright was doing the voice of The Watcher for What If..? I think he could play The Watcher live-action, too. I almost wonder if that's what they're planning, the sneaky sons.

On a podcast I was listening to this morning, someone said that they saw the Living Tribunal was among the clutter on The Void in Loki (specifically, his head). I missed that. I didn't go back over those scenes, so I'm guessing there's a lot I didn't notice. I did see Frog-Thor and the Thanos-copter.

 

[Cutlass]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/scarle...ase-11627579278?mod=searchresults_pos1&page=1

Scarlett Johansson Sues Disney Over ‘Black Widow’ Streaming Release
Star alleges simultaneous release of the latest Marvel movie in theaters and on Disney+ service was a breach of contract

Black Widow has a new enemy: the Walt Disney Co.

Scarlett Johansson, star of the latest Marvel movie “Black Widow,” filed a lawsuit Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court against Disney, alleging her contract was breached when the media giant released the film on its Disney+ streaming service at the same time as its theatrical debut.

Ms. Johansson said in the suit that her agreement with Disney’s Marvel Entertainment guaranteed an exclusive theatrical release, and her salary was based in large part on the box-office performance of the film.

“Disney intentionally induced Marvel’s breach of the agreement, without justification, in order to prevent Ms. Johansson from realizing the full benefit of her bargain with Marvel,” the suit said.

A Disney spokesman said Ms. Johansson’s suit had no merit and is “especially sad and distressing in its callous disregard for the horrific and prolonged global effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.” The company said it “fully complied with Ms. Johansson’s contract and furthermore, the release of Black Widow on Disney+ with Premier Access has significantly enhanced her ability to earn additional compensation on top of the $20 million she has received to date.”

The suit could be a bellwether for the entertainment industry. Major media companies are giving priority to their streaming services in pursuit of growth, and are increasingly putting their high-value content on those platforms. Those changes have significant financial implications for actors and producers, who want to ensure that growth in streaming doesn’t come at their expense.

“This will surely not be the last case where Hollywood talent stands up to Disney and makes it clear that, whatever the company may pretend, it has a legal obligation to honor its contracts,” said John Berlinski, an attorney at Kasowitz Benson Torres LLP who represents Ms. Johansson.

The suit also notes that annual bonuses for Disney Chairman Robert Iger and Chief Executive Bob Chapek are tied to the performance of Disney+ and cites that as further motivation for putting “Black Widow” on the service. Disney disclosed in its 2021 proxy that Messrs Iger and Chapek both received bonuses for the success of Disney+. “In short, the message to—and from— Disney’s top management was clear: increase Disney+ subscribers, never mind your contractual promises, and you will be rewarded,” the suit said.

Disney began releasing movies simultaneously on Disney+ and in theaters partly because of the Covid-19 pandemic, when theaters were closed or at limited capacity, and partly to boost its nascent service. AT&T Inc.’s WarnerMedia, which operates the HBO Max streaming service, is following a similar strategy for its entire 2021 slate of Warner Bros. movies. Comcast Corp.’s NBCUniversal has since followed suit, with the release of “The Boss Baby: Family Business” both in theaters and on its Peacock streaming service.

WarnerMedia chose to renegotiate many of its talent contracts that, like Ms. Johansson’s deal with Marvel, were tied to box-office performance. Warner Bros. paid more than $200 million to talent as part of the amended agreements.

....

The change in movie distributions is having an odd effect on the actors.

 

[Arakhor]

If someone promises to make my pay dependent on box office returns and then deliberately undercuts those box office returns, I'd be steaming too.

 

[EgonSpengler]

The change in movie distributions is having an odd effect on the actors.

If someone promises to make my pay dependent on box office returns and then deliberately undercuts those box office returns, I'd be steaming too.

I don't pay much attention to the contracts side of the entertainment business, but it seems like nobody has quite gotten their arms around the rapidly-changing technology. I'd be surprised if actors' contracts have fully accounted for streaming, even before the pandemic.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Was watching an episode of Titans and it occurred to me that the DCEU did kind of scoop the MCU in one way: Anna Diop, who plays Starfire, would also have made a pretty good Storm.



Heck, you could almost do a total recast of Titans into X-Men. I mean, the two teams are pretty similar anyway. I don't know if The New Teen Titans was a deliberate attempt to capture some of the success of The Uncanny X-Men back in the 1980s, but the timing was always kind of suspicious... That's not a knock, btw, I was a big fan of both comics. In fact, there was a period of time when I preferred Teen Titans, when Marv Wolfman and George Perez were doing stories like "The Judas Contract" and Trigon coming to Earth and turning Raven evil. My friends back then were caught up in the Marvel-or-DC mindset, and they all refused to read any DC comics. I think I was the only one in my circle of friends who read stuff from both publishers.

Anna Diop / Starfire -> Storm
Brendan Thwaites / Dick Grayson -> Cyclops
Minka Kelly / Dove -> Jean Grey
Ryan Potter / Beast Boy -> Nightcrawler
Teagan Croft / Raven -> Kitty Pryde
Alan Ritchson / Hawk -> Colossus
Conor Leslie / Donna Troy -> Rogue (Leslie is from NJ, though; I dunno if I want a Yankee playing a Southern belle - see Billy Bob Thornton's impression of a Northerner playing a Southern accent )
Chelsea Zhang / Rose -> Jubilee

Some big missing pieces, unfortunately: No candidates to play Wolverine or Prof. X. But it was never going to be a perfect fit, was it?

Ian Glen plays the middle-aged Bruce Wayne in Titans and Timothy Dalton plays Dr. Caulder in the Titans-adjacent Doom Patrol (which was, back in the 1960s, DC Comics' answer to Marvel's original X-Men). Neither actor would make a satisfying Prof. X for me, though. (Truthfully, I don't care for Ian Glen as Bruce Wayne, either, but it's only a supporting role, so I'm willing to let it slide.)

And Wolverine is just hard to cast, full stop, especially if you're trying to replace Hugh Jackman. Kevin Feige & Co are going to cause a firestorm of nerd-rage, no matter what they do with that character, when the time comes. They're probably just screwed.