This trailer is amazing! It has cool light sabers, an X-Wing battle, and the Millennium Falcon! Oh man, I cannot wait for this movie!
Jurassic World Verus Pan!
Two major trailers came out yesterday, Universal’s Jurassic World and Warner Brothers’ Pan. While they may not have a lot in common, both studios hope that these will build to future franchises, and they are both trying to use existing material lure you in. Let’s start with Jurassic World shall we!
I have been skeptical of this movie since it was announced, but this trailer did a good job of getting me interested. I love the idea of exploring a working Jurassic theme park, also Star Lord, but I am less keen on having a giant velociraptor be the main threat. With that many people in the park it doesn’t seem like a super-smart predator is necessary. But like I said, I am interested in this film now, so job well done.
Let’s see what Warner Brothers brought us with Pan shall we?
Again I am more interested in this movie now than I was before, but I still have a lot of reservations. I am not sure that Peter Pan and Hook need an origin story, and this movie has the same problem that all prequels do, we already know where this movie ends up: One’s experiences make him a hero, the other a villain (I will let you figure out which is which). Oz The Great and Powerful suffered for the same reason. Though the special effects look amazing, so it may be worth the price of admission just to see cool stuff.
Two big movies banking on you wanting to see more based on well known material. Do you? I am still struggling to figure out if I do, but it is hard for my inner thirteen year old self to turn down dinosaurs on the big screen.
DC Comics TV/Movie News!
First up it looks like Constantine might be DC TV’s first casualty. According to Deadline, NBC has halted production after 13 episodes. Now for most shows this would be the end, but it looks like NBC is going to continue to evaluate how the rest of these episodes do. The ratings are getting better. Its per-episode reviews are going up, not that they were ever bad, and its online fan base continues to grow, so it has a better shot then a lot of shows to get picked up for another 13 episode run next year, maybe as a midseason replacement or something. Though once production is halted getting back on the air is always a long shot.
Now to the two DC TV shows that are no where near getting canceled, Arrow and The Flash, it looks like we will not be seeing Batman or Superman any time soon. In an interview with ComicBook.com the producer of those shows, Andrew Kreisberg, has said that the big two are completely off limits, as are their cities. It looks like Nightwing is still on the table though, so we may not get Batman, but we still may get his former ward. It is a shame Warner Brothers Movies and Warner Brothers TV can’t work together better. If we can have two Flashes, we can certainly have two Batmen. Heck it would make my Earth 2 theory work better anyway.
From TV to movies, Wonder Woman has a director! According to The Hollywood Reporter, Michelle MacLaren, who has directed some of The Walking Dead‘s best episodes, has signed on to direct this block-buster for Warner Brothers. It has been long rumored that DC/WB was looking for a woman to direct this movie, and it looks like they found her. She has been doing good work on TV for a long time now, so it is a great time for her to make the move to feature films.
I Wish ‘This Is 40’ Had A Story!
This is 40 had a lot of things going for it: It was written and directed by Judd Apatow. It was the spin-off of Knocked Up, and it was based on two of Knocked Up’s well liked characters. It featured a lot of great talent, but the problem is that none of it went anywhere. It was still funny in places, very funny in fact, but it just lacked cohesion.
This movie follows Debbie (Leslie Mann) and Pete (Paul Rudd) as they try to navigate turning 40. Their kids are getting older and harder to deal with, their parents drive them crazy, and their jobs are not going well. They are just having a hard time making it all work.
Now Mann and Rudd are very funny, so this premise sounds great, but the problem is that there is no real story. It is just them having a hard time getting older. The crappy parents thing could have been one story, or their jobs going south could have been another, but instead of picking something and exploring it, we get a bunch of little vignettes, so nothing really keeps us engaged.
Like I have said the cast is wonderful, and they almost make this movie work. Considering all of this movie’s flaws, I would still probably watch a sequel just to see all these people work together again. Because if they had gotten a script with any meat on it at all this would have been a good movie.
It has been awhile since Judd Apatow has given us a full fledged hit, and I think This is 40 could have been one, but instead of giving us one decent story, he gave us like four ‘meh’ stories. Still, these are all good actors in good roles. so maybe Apatow can bring it all together for This is 50.
Chris Pratt Snags Another Comic Book Lead!
It seems that if you have a little known comic book that you want to make a movie out of you call Star Lord, err I mean Chris Pratt. Here is good look at the handsome fella.
He has just signed on to be the lead in Cowboy Ninja Viking. Never heard of it? That is fine, almost no one has, but it looks like Universal is not content to let Disney, Warner Bros, Sony, and Fox make all the comic book movies without them.
I am fine with Universal making movies out of Image comics, but I am not sure that I would have started with the odd Cowboy Ninja Viking. I would have preferred they started with Invincible, or at least Witchblade or something. Still it seems that Pratt can do no wrong these days, so I am sure he will make a fun movie out of it.
It is strange that Disney is letting Pratt take on another comic book film considering that they wouldn’t let Jaime Alexander (Sif from Thor) try out for Wonder Woman. Maybe they didn’t have faith in their space opera and didn’t lock him down the same way that the other Marvel actors have been, or maybe he just has a better agent that wouldn’t let him get locked down. Whatever the case, we will see him suit up as a Cowboy, a Ninja, and a Viking sometime in 2018.