A place for things and stuff
After months of speculation and downright denial, Variety is now reporting that it is official: Jason Momoa of Game of Thrones fame is Aquaman!
I think this is my favorite casting yet! I know he is not blond, but he just has the look of the King of the Sea, and I can see him kicking the crap out of Superman or Batman if need be. I just hope he shows up riding a Kraken, or you know destroys everything with a school of megalodon sharks!
Just yesterday I was talking about how I was going to be exited for Batman V Superman in May 2016, but then Warner Brothers went and announced the movie dates for their upcoming line up, and low and behold Batman v Superman has moved to March 25th 2016. That means I will not have to wait quite as long! They probably didn’t make this move for me, but instead did it so they wouldn’t be sharing a release date with Captain America 3. They want a whole month all to themselves to recoup the costs of this no doubt expensive movie.
They also released the date for the Harry Potter-verse movie Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them of 11/18/2016. Which is now a trilogy, and then they called dibs on all sorts of future dates. Here is the complete list:
Batman V Superman – 03/25/2016
Untitled DC Film – 08/05/16
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them – 11/18/2016
Untitled DC Film – 06/23/17
Untitled DC Film – 11/17/17
Untitled DC Film – 03/23/18
Untitled Warner Animated Film – 05/25/18
Untitled DC Film – 07/27/18
Untitled WB Event Film – 11/16/18
Untitled DC Film – 04/05/19
Untitled Warner Animated Film – 05/24/19
Untitled DC Film – 06/14/19
Untitled DC Film – 04/03/20
Untitled DC Film – 06/19/20
Untitled WB Event Film – 11/20/20
The “Event Films” are no doubt the Fantastic Beasts sequels, and it looks like WB is going to try and cut in to Disney’s stranglehold on animation. If we look back at the list that leaked earlier here, we can probably fill in Shazam for 8/5/2016. The rest of the dates are moving around, but I would guess Sandman and Wonder Woman would fill in the next dates with the next Justice League movie showing up in March again for 2018. After that your guess is as good as mine.
Still it is impressive to see that many DC movies lined up. If you were worried that you would be without caped crusaders on the silver screen. Never fear it looks like DC has got you covered. Once you get to March 25th 2016 that is.
The Batman v Superman movie has a few things against it: it has a bad title, a Batman from Boston, and its precursor Man of Steel had its issues. Still we are getting a movie with Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Cyborg, and probably Aquaman all together. That is something I never thought I would see. Even if this movie is terrible, it will still be a must see event, and something geeks have been dreaming about for years.
Sure Marvel has been killing it with their movies for a few years now, but the DC heroes are the most recognizable superheroes on the planet. Everyone knew who Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman were before this comic book movie craze began. They are a legitimate part of American culture. Spider-Man is probably the Marvel hero that comes closest to them in notoriety, but he still isn’t that close. Wolverine? Maybe.
I know a lot of geeks are down on this movie because of all the reasons I listed above, but I think that is because this movie is such event that they don’t want to get their hopes crushed, so being pessimistic and snarky is easier. It is a little scary, but I would rather be looking forward to May 2016 instead of dreading it. I know where I will be Memorial Day Weekend 2016. Sitting in a theater cramming popcorn down my gullet, so I might as well be excited and happy about it.
So according to TheWrap the new Ghostbusters director Paul Feig wants it to be all female. This is a good idea. If they did a Ghostbusters 3 or a normal Ghostbusters reboot they would either have to try and get the old (and I do mean old) gang back together, or try and recapture the same “spirit” with a new cast, and both of those things seem to be impossible.
By using an all female cast it will create some excitement, and they will not have to deal with any preconceived notions of what the movie should be. They can do whatever they want because they would have changed things up enough. It may sound a little gimmicky, but sometimes a good gimmick is all you need.
Now the other argument is that we already have two good Ghostbusters movies (well a great one, and an okay one), so why do we need another one? Well those movies came out in the 80’s, so there is whole generation that still needs to be introduced to these movies, and by making a new one it keeps the franchise fresh and relevant. I hope this idea gets this movie rolling, because I would love to go to the theaters to watch the Ghostbusters!
It turns out that after a summer of box office misses it would take a team of misfits to save the day, and in August of all months. Which is usually the month that movie studios send their movies that they have no faith in to languish and die. Disney should have faith in Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy because it is a lot of fun.
The story primarily follows Peter Quill AKA Star Lord (Chris Pratt) as he leads a group of outlaws to try and stop Ronan the Accuser (Lee Pace) from attacking the planet Xandar. His group includes Drax the Destroyer (Dave Batista), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), a tree named Groot (Vin Diesel), and Rocket the Raccoon (Bradley Cooper). They are outclassed and outgunned, but they are crazy enough to get the job done.
The writers of this movie were very smart. Introducing the Marvel space universe requires giving the audience a lot of names and places, so they did their best to make this movie as fun loving as possible. That way even if you didn’t get it all you still had a good time. This is probably the most comedic of the Marvel movies yet, and that is a good thing. I also liked that they made this a group origin story, sure they did talk about all the characters’ backgrounds a little, but this movie is about the group not the individual which feels a little more fresh.
If you are going to make an action comedy, you are going to need a lead that can deal all those jokes with good comedic timing, and Chris Pratt was a perfect choice for that. All his years on Parks and Rec helped him get the comedy side down, and it turns out that he knows how to throw a punch too. Zoe Saldana apparently just wants to do space operas, Guardians Of The Galaxy, Star Trek, and Avatar. She is good at it, so I would keep letting her do it. In this movie she gets to be in the middle of the action more, and she handles herself well. Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel got to prove their talent as voice actors. They managed to steal every scene they were in, and Dave Batista is a good professional wrestler that may have a good acting career ahead of him too.
James Gunn had to tone himself down a little, and bend to the Marvel movie “look”, but he still got some of his trademark weirdness in. Especially in the scenes with Benicio del Toro as the collector. The amount of random Marvel stuff he “collected” in those scenes was incredible. I may just have to watch that part of the movie over and over again just so I can find all the references. Since James Gunn usually directs horror-comedies, action-comedy apparently was right up his alley.
This movie promises that the Guardians of the Galaxy will be back, and that is an exciting thought. I can’t wait to see what trouble Star Lord and his group of numbskulls get in to next. I just hope that they can keep the next movie as fun as this one because if they do, they will have a great new franchise on their hands. Not that Disney was lacking any.