With the huge success that Disney had with Star Wars: The Force Awakens, they wanted to make sure that the Star Wars brand wouldn't drift from peoples minds over the two years between episodes. In order to do this, they introduced the "Anthology Films." These would take place in the Star Wars universe, but happen outside of the Episode timeline. The first of these Anthology films to be released will be Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which comes out this December. The film will follow a group of Rebel fighters that are sent out to steal the plans for the Death Star, a huge battle station the size of a small moon that the Empire is building. It will take place between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope. The second of these Anthology films to be made will follow the early adventures of a you Han Solo, and up until recently, there wasn't much to talk about regarding this film. But like I said, that was until recently...
It's being reported that Alden Ehrenreich (Hail Caesar!) has been chosen to play the role of a young, twenty-something Han Solo. Although the official announcement hasn't been made yet, insiders are saying that the deal is basically done. Other things we know about the film is that it will be directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller. It's been said that these two can spin gold from the worst Hollywood film ideas. They're responsible for 21 Jump Street, 22 Jump Street, and The Lego Movie. The Han Solo movie is being co-written by Lawrence Kasdan, who wrote The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, and The Force Awakens, and his son Jon Kasdan.
There's also a rumor that the young Han Solo might make a cameo appearance in the upcoming Rogue One movie, which is probably one of the main reasons that Disney and Lucasfilm have started casting for this role so early. The Han Solo Anthology film will hit theaters May 25, 2018.
The name Craig Miller has been making it's way around websites lately. If you haven't heard of him yet, he's Lucasfilm's first fan relations officer. I have no idea what that title holds, but apparently it allows you access to some pretty cool Star Wars facts. To give you an example, he recently spoke with Inverse and told them that Return of the Jedi was supposed to be a lot different than the one we were given. Here's what he had to say about the original idea for the movie:
“Originally Boba Fett was set up in Empire as a character, and the third movie’s plot was going to be more about Boba Fett rescuing Han Solo and all of that. Boba was gonna be the main villain… That was set up, why he was taking Han Solo away, why there was a thing with him in the Christmas special.”
So the question has to be asked...why did they kill him off so quickly in the movie if he was supposed to be such a major player in the films?
“When George decided not to make a third trilogy, he completely jettisoned that story line, which is why in the first ten minutes, Boba Fett gets bumped into and falls into the mouth of a giant monster. So he took what was planned for the third trilogy, which was the confrontation between Luke and Darth Vader, and the battle with the Emperor, and that got squished down from three movies to one movie. And that became the plot of Jedi.”
What we learned from Miller is that Return of the Jedi was going to deal with Chewie, Leia, Lando, and Luke trying to rescue Han from the clutches of Boba Fett, the bounty hunter that was to be the main villain in the film. Even though that never ended up happening, Boba Fett still remains one of the most popular characters in the Star Wars universe. He's so popular in fact, comic books based on the Star Wars universe had him escape from the Sarlacc Pit and continue on with his own adventures. Now that Disney owns the rights to Star Wars, it doesn't sound like we'll see Boba Fett return. In their "expanded universe" novels, his armor was found by some Jawas and ended up being sold to someone else.
And did you catch that line up above about how Lucas decided not to make the third trilogy? I thought he said in an interview that there had never been talks about there being nine films in the story? So what gives?
“At first there was one film, and then George originally announced that it was one of 12, and there were going to be 12, and then that changed to, oh there was never 12, there was only 9, and he was going to make 9. And then during all of it, George kind of lost interest in continuing it… While we were working on The Empire Strikes Back, George decided he was going to complete the first film trilogy and that would be it.”
After watching the prequels, I'm glad he lost interest in making the films. What do you think of the idea to have Boba Fett as the main villain in Return of the Jedi? Would you have rather seen that than the one we got, or do you like how the movie ended up turning out? Let me know your thoughts in the comments section down below.
One of the biggest questions that is being asked about Captain America: Civil War is "Where is the Hulk?" Considering that nearly all of the Avengers will be squaring off in this film, his absence is quite noticeable. Thor not being involved is easy to explain (he's off world in Asgard), but it's assumed that Bruce Banner is still on Earth, so why isn't he involved in this fight? It seems that this question hasn't gone unnoticed by Marvel, and they recently posted a picture on Twitter from the WHIH Newsfront account, a fictitious news program hosted by Christine Everhart that exists in the MCU. Under the picture (seen above) it says, "In the wake of the Battle of Sokovia, many international governments are asking, 'Where is the Hulk?'"
It sounds like Marvel is trying to imply that the Hulk is in hiding for fear of persecution for the damage that he caused in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Bruce Banner had been scared that the world had seen the Hulk for who he truly was, even though he was under the mind control of the Scarlett Witch at the time of his raging. The last we saw of the Hulk was after the Battle of Sokovia and he was flying off in one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s jets. It was recovered after it had crashed into the ocean, but Banner was no where to be found.
It should also be mentioned that the main reason for leaving out the Hulk from the Civil War conflict is probably because which ever team he'd end up being on, that team would win. Easily. Who on the Avengers could take him down. Iron Man? If Hulk was on Team Captain America and Stark had to break out the Hulk Buster suit again, who's to say that he'd be able to focus all of his attention on just the Hulk? When he beat him down in Age of Ultron it was a one on one. This time, he'd have to be aware of everybody on Cap's team possibly interfering or teaming up with Hulk. If that was the case, then the advantage goes to Hulk. If he was on Team Iron Man, I really don't see anyone outside of Scarlett Witch having any effect on him. Since he knows what she can do to him, she'd be the first one he'd take out, then there'd be no one left that could handle the Hulk. In this scenario, the advantage again goes to Hulk.
In the beginning of this post I said that it was assumed that the Hulk was still here on Earth, but this might not be the case, either. If the rumors about the upcoming Thor: Ragnarok are to be believed, then after Thor gets banished from Asgard, he runs into the Hulk fighting in some sort of arena on another planet. Think "Planet Hulk." But how does he get there? How long has he been there? We'll have to wait until 2017 to find out the answers to these questions.
So what do you think about the Hulk missing out on Civil War? Do you think my assumptions are correct if he were to join the fight? Which side do you think he would take? My guess would be Team Iron Man, just because they had been working together on projects at the time when Age of Ultron began. Let me know your thoughts in the comments section below.
There was a lot of doubt surrounding the announcement of Ben Affleck playing Batman when it was made, but after Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice hit theaters last month, Affleck's portrayal of Bruce Wayne seemed to win over even the biggest skeptics. His aged and weathered Batman told us that he'd been wearing the cape and cowl for a long time, but little was touched upon regarding his past exploits. Some fans thought that this gave the DCEU a larger universe of characters, even if they weren't mentioned or explained. Others were disappointed that Warner Bros. just assumed that fans "knew stuff" and didn't really need to explain much about what Batman has gone through prior to the films story.
The best way to look at this is that it gives the upcoming Batman stand-alone film a lot to work with. We don't know what it's going to cover, but a lot of people want to know what happened to Robin, and which Robin was it that died. The common assumption is that it was Jason Todd, just like in the comic books, but considering the creative liberties that the writers are taking (i.e. the origin of Doomsday) it could really be any of them. The next question that we want answered is, "Who's Batman going to be fighting in the upcoming film?" Devin Faraci, who writes with Birth Movies Death, had this to report on the subject:
"Many, if not most, members of Batman's rogue's gallery will be making appearances in the film. It's going to be crammed with Bat villains, which means that just about every major bad guy you've ever wanted to see in a movie will be in this movie."
Just so you know, Faraci has been pretty spot on when it comes to reporting on things that are happening in the DCEU. That being said, if this information is correct, he says that he thinks that all of these rogues won't be the main focus of the film, but will be making small cameos as inmates at Arkham or Blackgate, as opposed to being apart of some sort of "army of villains". Only a select few, or even only one, would have a significant role in the film. Whatever the length of their appearances, it'll be cool to see them all on the big screen in the same movie.
There's no word on when the movie will be released, but it does sound like Warner Bros. is fast-tracking it to be made as soon as possible. With all of the criticism surrounding BvS, Warner Bros. knows that the one thing that people could agree on liking was Affleck's Batman. Heck, they even had Snyder go back and re-edit the film to include more of him after test audiences watched the first cut and thought there was too much Superman and not enough Batman. The sooner they get a solo Batman movie out into theaters, the sooner they can start gaining back fans of DC comics that didn't like BvS. The story shouldn't be something to worry about. The screenplay is being written by Affleck (who is a comic book fan, and an Oscar winning writer) and Geoff Johns (who is a comic book writer). The two of them should be able to put together a great script. Oh yeah, Affleck will also be directing the film.
So what do you think? Are you excited for this movie to be made, or did BvS dull your excitement towards any DC comic book movie? Let me know your thoughts in the comments section below.
Last year gave us the first television series between Marvel and Netflix when Daredevil premiered. Until it aired, there was a lot of doubt that a television series that followed the blind crime fighter would be any good, but the show turned out to be a huge success. One of the main reasons people watched it was that it stayed true to the comic book. On top of that, Netflix was able to give us the gritty and dark tone that network television wouldn't have been able to mimic. It was given a second season, and after watching it, it showed me that the first season wasn't a fluke. The thing I liked the most from season two? The introduction of Frank Castle (a.k.a. The Punisher) played by Jon Bernthal. It seems that I'm not the only one that was impressed by him, Netflix has just announced that The Punisher is getting his own series at the streaming service.
Marvel and Netflix made this announcement through a teaser video, with Bernthal coming back to reprise his role. He'll be joining Steve Lightfoot who will be the executive producer for the show. In regards to Frank Castle, Lightfoot had this to say about him:
“For me, the complexity and unpredictability of Frank Castle make him an incredibly compelling character and I couldn’t be more excited to dive into his world. After watching Jon’s performance in ‘Marvel’s Daredevil’ I could not be more excited to be working with him to further develop and progress the story of this anti-hero in a show of his own.”
This should come as welcome news for Marvel, considering just the other day they had to announce that the Inhumans movie was not going to be made. It would have been the first movie made off of the storyline of their other television property, Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. The movie would have also given Marvel their own version of "mutants." Even though "mutants" are apart of Marvel comic books, the cinematic use of "mutant" is owned by 20th Century Fox. The expansion of their Netflix universe should dull the pain from that just a little bit.
So what did you think of Daredevil season 2? What did you think about Jon Bernthal as Punisher? Let me know your thoughts in the comments section down below.
A week before Captain America: Civil War appears in theaters across the US, it made it's international debut in countries all around the world, and judging by it's opening weekend numbers, it's a huge hit. It's opening weekend made the movie over $200 million in 27 territories, which make up roughly 63% of the international market (according to Variety), so there's still plenty of money for the film to make overseas.
When it opens in theaters across the US next weekend, analysts are predicting that it will pull in around the same amount it did over seas. If it does make the $200 million that they are predicting, it will beat out Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice by nearly $35 million. That's good news for Marvel, and more importantly, for comic book movies. After BvS underperformed at the box office, many critics thought that was the signal that comic book movies were starting to wear on viewers, but if Civil War performs as expected, that may show them that they are still a strong presence at the theater.
One of the main reasons people are looking forward to Civil War is the inclusion of Spider-Man for the first time in the MCU. This has to be a first when competing movie companies have come together to share a comic book property. Marvel wanted this, but Sony needed this. After the pathetic showing of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Sony needed something to re-energize their Spidey franchise. Now, with the help of Marvel, they're getting just that. And not only is Spider-Man appearing in Captain America: Civil War, but we now know that Iron Man will be showing up in the upcoming Spider-Man: Homecoming. This is huge for both franchises, but more important, it's great news for the fans.
So go out and see Captain America: Civil War this weekend (if you can get tickets) and let me know what you think of the movie. You can email me your thoughts at comconocave@gmail.com.
With the digital release of Deadpool one of the first things that fans of the film did was take a closer look at the names on the Dead Pool. In keeping with it's references to pop culture, the writers were very cheeky in the names that they included up on the Dead Pool. Starting from the top:
Bill Cosby
Charlie Sheen
Kanye West
Wade Wilson
Vladmir Putin
John Wilkes Booth
Ryan Reynolds
TJ Miller
Lindsay Lohan
Miley Cyrus
Kid Rock
Mike Tyson
Judd Nelson
Lil Wayne
Shia LeBeouf
Ned Beatty
Rob Liefeld (Deadpool creator)
Ozzy Osbourne
Amanda Bynes
I couldn't make out the last name on the list in the photo, so I can't add that one to the list. I'm waiting until the Blu-ray comes out to purchase because of the extra features, something that the digital copy doesn't offer. I'll be able to add the last name on the list at that time. The last name looks like "Palmer", but without a first initial I don't know which "Palmer it is. Robert? Carson? I'll just have to wait...
