I don't think that there's anything more enjoyable than watching a television show or a movie that's being directed by a fan of that show or movie. Their love of the characters and story shows through, as well as their excitement. This all holds true to last night's episode of The Flash, which was directed by long time fan of the show, Kevin Smith. Smith has been a fan of the show since it began last year, and everything that he did in last night's episode showed us just how much he loves it. He recently sat down to discuss his episode with Comicbook.com, and it was a lot of fun listening to him gush about being able to be a part of that series. In fact, he's hoping to direct another episode for the show in season three. But he was a little nervous about doing it at first. Here's a small excerpt from the interview:
"On The Flash, you've got a series where they've got 23 episodes and they get to really build character over that, and they don't have to rush. it's a leisurely pace. You don't have to do things in your episode of The Flash to make people understand, "okay, there's this guy who's been hit with lightning and chemicals and suddenly he can run fast. He lost his mom..." they've got all that. They get all that story leading up to your episode, so all you have to do is just take care of your hour.
Add to that the level of spectacle that they do, since it's only like a 42-minute episode, probably only a quarter of that is going to be the special effects, the stuff that I'm always uncomfortable with or the stuff that I'm least adept at doing.
So it kind of felt like when I was coming in on The Flash, the three pillars on which they've built the show -- heart, humor, and spectacle -- heart and humor, I can pull off. That's my bread and butter. Usually my third pillar is d--k jokes. But if you take that away and replace it with spectacule, that's what always has me going, "ehh, I don't know if I can do this." But the good news is, they're not doing two hours of spectacle.
And the good news, too, is that you don't have to dream up this stuff or create the stuff yourself. Everyone has their department on the show and everyone has what they do. Armen [Kevorkian], who's in charge of the special effects on the show and who directed the episode before mine, he's the guy who's got to figure out what the Speed Force looks like and stuff."
Jason Mewes also made an appearance in last night's episode, however it almost made it to the cutting room floor. Smith said that he didn't want people thinking that he was making the episode as a "Kevin Smith's The Flash" show. He thought, "you know, we probably should keep it Jay-free." But he knew how much of a fan Mewes is of the show, and he just couldn't do that to his friend. His cameo worked brilliantly, and it wasn't "Jay" role. In fact, he appeared twice in the episode, but you'll only recognize him in the one scene. The second shot he was in, he was part of the crowd of villains that Zoom was addressing at the end of the show.
If you want to read more from the interview with Kevin Smith, you can find it at the following link:
http://comicbook.com/dc/2016/05/09/kevin-smith-says-his-episode-of-the-flash-is-a-spiritual-sequel-/
It's hard to remember a time when Marvel Studios didn't exist. At one point, Marvel was financially in the red, and they needed to do something quick in order to avoid bankruptcy. Their solution? They started selling off all of their comic book properties to different movie studios. The X-Men and Fantastic Four were purchased by 20th Century Fox, Spider-Man went to Sony, Blade went to New Line Cinemas, The Punisher went to Lionsgate, and the Hulk was sent to Universal. Each company made profitable movies, even if they weren't up to the current Marvel quality, and this helped push Marvel into the black. Seeing that this was helping them make money again, both in licensing agreements and merchandise, they began to plan on selling off more of their comic book characters. Then, David Maisel walked in.
When Maisel arrived at Marvel, he saw a bigger universe for them to explore rather than sell everything off to other companies. At the time, Marvel's focus was on licensing their other comic book properties to movie companies. Two of these properties that were being negotiated at the time were Captain America and Thor, Cap going to Warner Brothers and Thor going to Sony. Even an Iron Man deal had been "idling" at New Line, but hadn't gone through because, "they thought it was a lousy property." But Maisel saw something that no one else did...a unified Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). Convincing Ike Perlmutter (Marvel Entertainment CEO) was not an easy sell, though. Maisel said of his conversations with Perlmutter, "Ike will challenge your argument and your logic in a tough way sometimes, but he will listen, and eventually I convinced him to support what I needed to do to at last try and make a studio."
This was a big gamble. So how did he finally convince Pertmutter to agree to go along? First, Maisel blocked the deals involving Captain America, Thor, and Iron Man. Then, in order to show his superiors how well this could work in theaters, he went to Lionsgate and brokered a deal with them to do a low-budget, straight to DVD animated Iron Man and the Avengers movie. Lionsgate financed the film for a distribution fee, and they also received half of the profits. Maisel says, "It allowed me to say to people: 'Look at the value of our IP. Here's someone paying all the money, and we have creative control and get half the profits."
Luckily, Marvel saw the benefit of this strategy and agreed to Maisel's vision. Their first movie that they released was Iron Man back in 2008. Seeing how profitable the new movie studio was becoming, Disney then bought it back in 2009 and they have been getting bigger and better ever since.
The Marvel universe just keeps getting bigger and bigger. The difference between this comic book movie universe and other studio comic book movie universes is that Marvel has amazingly balanced characters and story. Each character has been/is being developed to make the viewer care, understand, and maybe even relate to each one. Maybe not each one, I guess that one depends on if you chose to root for Team Iron Man or Team Captain America. If you chose a side, then you probably related to one character over the other, but I digress...
So to keep things interesting and fresh, Marvel keeps churning out new characters for us to meet. In Captain America: Civil War we met not one, but two new characters that now exist in the MCU. They are Spider-Man and Black Panther. Both of these characters will be getting their own solo films here in the near future. Later this year, we'll be introduced to Doctor Strange, played by Benedict Cumberbatch. Then, there is Captain Marvel. People were beginning to wonder if we'd ever get to see her in action. Her solo movie and introduction to the MCU was supposed to happen in July of 2018. Then it got moved to November of 2018. Now it's finally slated to be released in March of 2019. When a movie's release date gets moved around this much, there's usually trouble for the film actually getting released. Look what happened to Marvel's Inhumans. It kept getting moved around, and now it's finally been shelved. Is this going to be the fate of Captain Marvel too?
Maybe not. At a recent event at the Smithsonian Institute, the Russo brothers were talking about their next project Avengers: Infinity War, and while discussing it, they mentioned Captain Marvel by name. One of the fans in the audience quickly pounced on the mention of her and asked if they were confirming that Captain Marvel would be appearing in the next Avengers film. They quickly responded, "Um...Captain Barvel. Totally different character." Whoops. Quite a slip up. Or was it? Now that Civil War is out, why not keep fans talking about what's to come by coyly mentioning the next new Avenger?
If they did indeed confirm that she'll be making an appearance in the first of the two Infinity War movies, there's a few questions we need to ask. First, will she already have her super powers? Her solo film will be coming out after the first of the Infinity War films, but before the second one, so is her appearance in the first movie going to show her getting her powers so her solo outing isn't an origins story? That's kind of what they did with Black Panther and Spider-Man, and that seemed to work pretty well. Second, are they going to mention Mar-Vell, the Kree warrior that was her predecessor? Or is she going to be independent to the comic book backstory? By the way, the Kree were the blue guys in Guardians of the Galaxy, just an fyi. If they do go this route, how are they going to explain her ability to fly and all of her other talents, if she didn't get them from the original Captain Marvel? These are just a few questions that come to mind.
So in an epic, or deviously planned slip of the tongue, we now know that Captain Marvel will not be getting shelved after all. If she does end up joining the Avengers, who do you think will get to keep the nickname "Cap?"
Even though Tom Holland's Spider-Man only got around ten minutes of screen time, it was his portrayal of the web swinger that stole the show in Captain America: Civil War. Now that the movie has opened up state-side, the writers of the film are starting to open up about a few things concerning the movie. The writers, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, sat down to do an interview with IGN recently and answered a few questions regarding the wall crawler. One of the first questions they were asked was how did Tony Stark find out about Spider-Man and how did he know that it was Peter Parker? Here's what Markus had to say as an answer:
"I think he's been keeping tabs. I think he might know about everybody. Tony has A.I. somewhere running crime statistics. He can see where it's going up and heroes might be needed and where it's going down and there might be heroes. It's why he built Ultron in the first place."
So why did Stark choose Spider-Man for his team? Be warned, there is a very mild spoiler in this answer. Not one that really gives anything away as far as the movie is concerned, but in case you haven't seen the film yet, you can skip this answer if you want:
“I think he has been keeping tabs on the world and he knows about this one kid. In some ways there’s a motivation, having been accused of killing a young kid earlier in the movie to, ‘Maybe I can rebuild karmically something that I’ve lost by helping this kid along.’ And he’s there, and he’s available, and Tony’s desperate!”
McFeely added:
“He probably sees some of himself in this kid. Remember, when you meet this kid, he’s clearly a budding scientist, but doesn’t have the resources that Tony Stark does.”
These reasons were also the driving force to pick Spider-Man over Daredevil. Stark obviously knows what's going on in Hell's Kitchen, but chose Parker over Murdock because Daredevil is so violent. Stark's "Team Iron Man" is looking for accountability for their actions, so adding Daredevil to his team would be counter-productive towards what he's wanting. This also sets up Tony Stark's appearance in the upcoming Spider-Man: Homecoming. Since Stark is now Parker's sort-of mentor, it would make sense having him appear in the film. It also connects Sony's Spider-Man franchise to the MCU as a whole, which is good for both production companies.
Captain America: Civil War is now playing in theaters and Spider-Man: Homecoming comes out July 7, 2017.
Even though Captain America: Civil War opened up in worldwide markets last weekend, this past weekend was it's first showing in domestic markets, and it did not fail to impress...well, not every one. Opening here in the states with a whopping $181.7 million, some insiders say that Disney and Marvel were secretly disappointed that it didn't reach the projected $200 million mark. Oh, boo freakin' hoo. There's no pleasing some people, I guess, considering that this was the third highest opening weekend for a Marvel film, only behind both of the Avengers movies. This brought the movies global total to $678.3 million in just a little over one week of it's release. It's on track to quickly break the $1 billion mark, seeing as the next true competition for the film won't come out until Memorial Day weekend when X-Men: Apocalypse debuts.
I'm not going to give anything about the movie away, so don't worries, you won't have to worry about any spoilers in this post. I will say one thing about the film, though. It's funny how all of these rumors come out about what's going to be in the film, and then when people finally see it, none of it turns out to be true. Well, most of it turns out to be false, anyway. Even though it's not being billed as an Avengers movie, it boasts more Avengers in one film than even the two Avengers films had. Along with the Avengers we are already familiar with, two new members were introduced in this film...Black Panther and Spider-Man. Make sure you stick around after the movie is over, there are two extra scenes that deal with both of these characters, One is a mid-credit scene, the other comes at the end of the credits. If you think that the movie is long, wait until you sit through the credits to see both of these scenes. I think it would take less time to name everyone that was not involved with the film than everyone that was!
One thing that is bound to happen (and already has) is the comparison of Civil War to Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. While both deal with heroes fighting heroes, the similarities end there, so I'm not even going to join this argument on which is better. Both have their strong points and both have some weak points. It's basically apples and oranges people. Anyone trying to sucker you in to a discussion about which is better and why is just looking for an argument (unless you agree with them, of course).
We may not find out how Civil War impacts the MCU for a while, though. The next movie to be released is Doctor Strange, which comes out November 4, 2016, but don't expect it to say too much about Civil War. It's looking like an origin story, and will stand apart from the rest of the Marvel movie storylines until he's introduced to the rest of the group. So unless we get some answers from Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. before it's season finale, we won't know the implications from this fallout for quite some time.
Were you able to see the movie this past weekend? What did you think and where do you think it will head after all of the fighting is finished? Let me know what you think in the comments section down below.
Hoping to capitalize on Star Trek's 50th anniversary this year, Paramount is releasing Star Trek Beyond this summer. This will be the third movie in the rebooted series that was started by JJ Abrams. This time around, though, Abrams will not be involved (outside of his production company helping to release it) and the movie will be directed by Justin Lin. All of the actors from the first two films will be returning, as well as Idris Elbs (who will be playing the villain in the movie) and Sofia Boutella (who will be playing a mysterious alien ally to Kirk). The movie was written by co-star Simon Pegg and Doug Jung. Okay, no that I've got all of that out of the way, let's move on...
After the trailer for Star Trek Beyond was released, the reviews on it from people were mixed. Some thought that it was muddled and confusing, while others simply loved it. To help ease some of the doubts in people, both Pegg and Lin have come out and said that the movie "offers far more substance than the preview presented." Paramount is banking on this since they plan on making more Star Trek movies. In fact, Paramount has registered the temporary title Star Trek 4 with the Motion Picture Association of America. Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto signed on for a fourth Star Trek film late last year, but they're the only two to have been signed so far. Lin may not be able to return to direct the next installment since he's being considered to helm the movie Space Jam 2, which will feature the Looney Tunes characters and LeBron James. Zoe Saldana might not be able to return due to her heavy schedule. She's currently filming Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2 and then begins work on the sequels to James Cameron's Avatar. Cameron says that there are going to be four sequels to the movie, and if Saldana's character is in each of these sequels, she's going to be busy for a very long time. Oh, and Marvel wants to make a third Guardians of the Galaxy movie, too, so there's that for her as well.
Obviously, all of this is just speculation and we won't know if this project will go forward until the movie Star Trek Beyond is released and we see how well it's received by fans. If it's a hit, then there will be no doubt that a fourth movie will be made. If it bombs...who knows? Another factor to consider is the upcoming Star Trek television series that CBS is making. If the series is a hit then that could help push Paramount forward in making a fourth movie, even if this summer's film doesn't do too well. I don't think that it will bomb at the theaters, though. There are too many fans of the Star Trek universe for it not to make a lot of money. Look at Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Even though it got panned by critics (surprise, surprise) and some fans, it went on to make over $850 million worldwide. That will guarantee another movie being made involving the DCEU.
So what are your thoughts on the upcoming Star Trek film? Are you looking forward to seeing it in theaters, or is this something you'll wait to see on DVD? Let me know your thoughts in the comments section down below.
Star Trek Beyond comes out July 22, 2016.
Early I wrote that Supergirl had been renewed for a second season. This was based off of a quote by CBS CEO Les Moonves saying, "I believe all five of them will be renewed," referring to five new television series, one of which is Supergirl. Well, I may have jumped the gun a little on that one. When CBS announced a total of 11 returning series to the network, none of the five freshman shows were on that list. So what gives?
One of the main issues that CBS has with the series is it's drop in viewers. They don't see it as a good investment due to the fact that the show cost roughly $3 million per episode in licensing fees, and this could cause them to drop the show all together. If that happens, there has been a lot of speculation (and be sure, it's all just speculation...there is no proof that there have been any talks about this happening yet) that the show could possibly move to The CW. This could be the best move for the television series. The CW would be able to incorporate Supergirl's universe in more with it's other DC comic series like Arrow, The Flash, and Legends of Tomorrow. The audience for the network is much younger than that of CBS, and that could benefit Supergirl's ratings. The CW already has a loyal fan base of young women watching shows like The Vampire Diaries, The Originals, and iZombie. In addition to those, Berlanti (EP to Arrow, The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, and Supergirl) is getting ready to make a television series based on Archie comics called Riverdale. If Supergirl were able to join these programs, it would be a perfect fit.
Those were the pros, now for the cons. These are all just rumors. The same thing happened when Constantine got cancelled by NBC, and it never made it over to The CW. If Supergirl did end up moving to The CW, then it would probably have to move to Vancouver, Canada, where all of the other DC shows are filmed. That, and it's budget would more than likely be cut, which could impact the look and feel of the show. That being said, I think that a move to The CW is the smartest choice for the show. If they are going to do it, though, they'll have to move quick. Moonves and Warner Bros.TV chief Peter Roth will both have to work something out before CBS and CW's upfront presentations later this month.
So what are your thoughts on Supergirl possibly moving to The CW? Do you think that this would help the show, or is it too far gone to save? Let me know your thoughts in the comments section down below. If I hear anything else on this, I'll let you know.
