By George Robbins
The Star Wars franchise is one that has created generations of fans over the years and the recent sequel trilogy has created yet another generation of young fans. Every generation of Star Wars films has brought with it an entirely new generation of fans, but they are often times not liked by the older fans of the franchise. Although this remains the case for many, the fact remains that each generation of films brings with it more overall acclaim for the series. Over the last few years, we got the chance to see this first hand because, although the most recent of the films didn’t do as well as expected, they sold better than their predecessors. This has given an idea as to how important the series as a whole is to the modern world and how much of a pop culture phenomenon it really is.
These past few movies, now dubbed the sequel trilogy, have become a voice for a new generation no matter how much long time fans are trying to discredit it. Many were hoping recently that the films would actually be considered non-canon as of late and that this would create a new opportunity for the universe. However, this was proven to be a false rumor and the trilogy will remain as it was as a part of the Star Wars canon along with the other films in the series. This just shows how much older fans of the series do not want to let go of the part of Star Wars that they thought was good from the older films. Even if the new films were not what they were expecting, they should just let the newer generations have their own films to watch.
This year has been one that has been rife with controversy and has overall been a difficult year because of everything that has happened thus far. With the pandemic, many people have had no choice but to deal with the cards they have been dealt and try and get through all of this safe and sound. Unfortunately, there have been numerous deaths this year and they are deaths that have resulted in countless families losing loved ones. Then to make matters worse, there are countless people claiming that they should have the right to do as they please even if it endangers their health. There are obvious issues with this as it doesn’t just affect their health. One of the biggest things to happen not too long ago is the BLM protests that saw many prominent members of the black community speaking out and pointing out problems all over, including Hollywood.
One actor who was very vocal about these issues was John Boyega who plays Finn in the Star Wars sequel trilogy. He recently stated that he would not be returning to the franchise in the future. Boyega had his issues with the films that he was very vocal about and he was very much also in support of the most recent ‘The Rise of Skywalker‘ despite many criticisms. Now with the opinions of older hardcore fans and how they don’t want the films to be canon speaks volumes to the type of climate we are currently in. This is a part of the motivating factors behind people moving on from the franchise like Boyega is trying to do moving forward. There is no telling how the franchise will move on from this point forward, but according to John Boyega, it won’t include him.
By George Robbins
The movie industry has been abuzz as of late with so much currently going on in the world and there being such a shortage of time and hands. This has resulted in numerous productions having no choice but to shut down until the studio knows that no one is going to spread the virus again. There have already been countless delays and some projects have just straight up been abandoned. Some of the projects that are resuming are going to have an even harder time going forward due to the shut downs in California that we are currently seeing. Although all of the news coming out of Hollywood at the moment isn’t all terrible because there have been announcements about new projects and movies have announced that they have moved forward with production again.
That being said, much of the news coming out of many studios is still bad news for the most part and it is a lot for us to take in from the outside perspective. For instance, many studios as of late have had to further delay their movies due to the strong resurgence in Covid-19 cases. There are many films that were meant to release at some point later this year, but it now seems that they have all been pushed into next year. This has made it all the more difficult for most theaters to reopen because they have been chasing down movie releases so that they will have a good reason to open their doors. This is why, despite announcing that they would have all been opened by mid-July, the movie theater chains Regal, Cinemark, and AMC have decided to stay closed until the end of July.
Of course, the delays of films and the reopening of theaters is not the only bad news and, as mentioned before, announcements about canceled projects have been made. Among those canceled projects is the interesting but scrapped idea for a movie called ‘Silver & Black.’ The titular characters being the anti-heroes Silver Sable and Black Cat who usually contend with Spider-Man. These characters are well-known nowadays but they have never actually been put on the big screen in any kind of live-action format. They would have been put on the big screen as a part of the plan by Sony for a number of Spider-Man spin-offs to be made showing the backstories of various characters from the universe. This is just a pipe dream at this point now unfortunately.
The film was in development for years before it was eventually canceled recently and for the longest time, fans were wondering if they would get to see the film. Director Gina Prince-Bythewood was attached to the project, but after a number of script rewrites that resulted in nothing actually getting done, the project was scrapped. It was determined that instead of making a joint film, the characters will instead get films of their own. So while it would have been interesting if the joint film was made, there is still going to be something for us to watch for the characters. It seems like these films will still be a ways off, but we will eventually get to see a few new spin-offs for characters that have never had live-action portrayals before.
By George Robbins
Video game movies are just one of those things that nobody expects to really be any good due to the painful history that this niche genre has. Almost every single movie that has been created that has been based on a video game has seen almost abysmal reviews upon release and more times than not, they have lost a lot of money for studios. Not every one that is made ends up being terrible, but a majority of them do and it has made it difficult for there to be any kind of audience for the genre moving forward. One movie that recently released within the past couple of years that showed that it was possible for a video game movie to succeed was the ‘Detective Pikachu‘ movie. There were a number of factors that ended up playing into this such as the good will of the franchise and the fact there were so many mediums for the games already.
Just because a video game was successfully adapted into a TV show before a live-action film was made doesn’t mean making video game films can be pointless. What I mean to say is that it doesn’t necessarily take popularity from another watchable medium to make it possible to create a successful video game movie. Simultaneously, it is very difficult to actually make a successful film based on a video game due to the mediums being so wildly different. For instance, movies are something you watch and have no direct interactivity with while video games are something you interact with constantly and in your own way. Thus it becomes kind of difficult to make a movie based on a game that captures that same intent.
The upcoming ‘Monster Hunter‘ movie is one that many are already predicting to fail even though its release isn’t until April of next year. The movie was made by director Paul W.S. Anderson who is also responsible for the creation of the ‘Resident Evil’ movies. There are a ton of criticisms for those movies, but it is the same issues that come up in regards to other video game movie adaptations. The movies often times come up with stories that wildly deviate from the source material in an effort to make the movie more watchable so it doesn’t feel “off.” By not playing the story ourselves, the movie becomes different in our eyes and it is viewed as a bad idea for movies to follow the plots of the games because of it.
The next game to get a movie adaptation is the ‘Uncharted’ movie that just started production and while the story is supposedly going to be different from the games, it sounds interesting. The plot of the movie is going to be a prequel to the games it’s based on and this gives it a way to make it seem more interesting to audiences. Now it would appear as though we will be getting a film based on the ‘Just Cause‘ series of games. Director Michael Dowse, who was responsible for the movie ‘Stuber’ has been tapped to lead the project and possibly bring the movie to the silver screen. There is no telling if this will actually work out or not, but at this point I guess there isn’t any harm in trying to make the film work out.
By George Robbins
Everyone who has seen the ‘Deadpool‘ movies at this point knows about the character of Cable who made his appearance in ‘Deadpool 2.’ He is introduced in a way that makes total sense in terms of the character’s backstory and it is done tastefully, in a way only the Deadpool movies can do it. His introduction is actually the first time his character has truly been shown in a live-action universe and it was done in a style unique to the character. Cable is a mutant from the future who returns to the past solely for revenge but ends up finding a place for himself in the present on the X-Force team. That team is formed by Deadpool himself and it offers up a selection of characters that has never really been seen on the silver screen before.
Although Cable was introduced in ‘Deadpool 2,’ he is a character that has seen more action in the comics than the titular character. This has pushed Deadpool co-creator Rob Liefeld to openly say that the character of Cable does not need to be connected to Deadpool in the future. This would give the character an opportunity to show off what he is truly capable of, but the chances of seeing him in his own film are somewhat low as of now. Before their acquisition by Disney, Fox had plans to make an X-Force movie and the main character of the film was going to be Cable who is usually a major character in the comic books. He was going to be front and center on the film, but it unfortunately ended up being scrapped. However, it seems that many are still interested in giving the character his own unique story.
The character was portrayed in the film by Josh Brolin who, as many well know by now, played the role of the Mad Titan Thanos in the MCU. With Disney’s acquisition, the opportunity to bring the X-Men to the MCU became a very real possibility and it seems that they still have plans to do so. People wondered if we would one day end up with a third ‘Deadpool’ movie, and according to Ryan Reynolds it will still end up happening. The biggest issue on people’s minds is how they can adapt the R-rated antics of Deadpool into the MCU which is mostly family-friendly. The simple answer would be that they couldn’t but we won’t know for sure until they say something otherwise.
It is up to Marvel Studios for what they want to do with the characters moving forward, but Josh Brolin has already said he wants to continue to play the character. For those that think he can’t play two roles in the same universe, then that can be countered by the fact that Thanos was not human and the two characters look very different from one another. The hope is that the character will be given the opportunity to return in a way that shows him as being separate from Deadpool and acting independently. This was they can create a diversified universe and give an interesting character room to show off a bit more. Marvel Studios has managed to work comedy into even the most serious films, so that shouldn’t be an excuse for why the character can’t have his own movie either. Hopefully, we will get to see more of the character in the, hopefully, near future.
By George Robbins
Back in March of this year, the world was turned on its head when the World Health Organization announced the global Covid-19 pandemic. An almost immediate response to this was the closing of almost all public venues and only essential businesses remained open to the public. This resulted in numerous people being put out of work and all forms of entertainment were forced to shut down. Thus, no one could go out to restaurants, bars, movie theaters, etc. and they would go on to spend months cooped up in their homes without being able to go and visit others. Beyond just businesses being shut down is the fact that things such as international travel to movie and television productions had no choice but to shut down as well.
In an attempt to keep the virus from spreading even more than necessary, major motion pictures had no choice but to shut down. Whether they had actually started the production or not, they were forced to close up shop to the public. This is how we ended up with productions like ‘The Batman‘ and the ‘Uncharted‘ adaptation being shut down and only now are they starting to get some work done again. Other major productions ended up being lucky and managed to get work done at home because they had already filmed a decent chunk of footage already. This ended up being the case for ‘Jurassic World 3’ and they were actually able to get VFX work done at home without any kind of rush or worry about finishing the work. Some productions haven’t been lucky enough to start getting back to work yet though.
Productions like ‘Mission: Impossible 7‘ have not been able to get back to work yet and will not be doing so until September to get the crew and equipment prepped. They even managed to get special permission to start filming again immediately instead of having to wait out the 2 week quarantine that would normally be in place. This is a standard for any productions nowadays because if anyone is traveling to a foreign nation they must remain in quarantine for 2 weeks to ensure they aren’t bringing in the virus. Although it seems that productions are getting back underway amidst the ongoing chaos, things are about to slow down again for many of them. Governor Newsom of California recently shut his state down again in the midst of a surge in coronavirus cases and this is now presenting a new challenge for things like productions moving forward.
For instance, now that the shelter-in-place orders have been put back into affect, many businesses have had no choice but to close up shop again. This includes things like restaurants and movie theaters; the latter of which weren’t really opened up anyway. It would seem that this won’t entirely shut down Hollywood like the beginning of the pandemic, but it does present some problems moving forward for studios. These issues include the newly placed into effect Tiered Testing System which tests individuals according to the severity of symptoms. The surge in new cases recently has resulted in testing taking longer to get results for and this is inadvertently going to affect productions. If studios can’t test their employees, then they will not be able to have them work and, in the end, this presents the issue of delays once again for studios. They might just find a way to work around this issue, but for now there is no telling what will happen.
By George Robbins
Film productions are having all kinds of fun trying to figure out how they are going to be moving forward because of what is going on with the pandemic. Much of the world is shut down still to some degree and it is taking its toll on the movie industry which is trying its best to stay on its feet throughout this whole thing. Big studios aren’t necessarily strapped for cash and it isn’t like there are any guaranteed deadlines, but people still want to get back to work as soon as they can. This has resulted in many productions such as ‘Avatar 2‘ being worked on almost as soon as they were able to and directors are pushing to get back to work. Among the projects that are even trying to use loopholes to get back to work quicker is the ‘Mission: Impossible 7‘ production.
This just goes to show that many projects just want to get back to work while some were fortunate enough to be able to continue working even with the pandemic. Other productions are also having to change the way they film moving forward to be more in-line with the restrictions that are now in place. This has been shown recently with the filming of ‘The Batman‘ no longer being done on location and it will now be done on new sets made in the studio. This has now shed a bit of light on how difficult it will be for some productions moving forward and it also shows how determined some film crews are to get back to work. So it should be no surprise that films that hadn’t started production yet will now be starting up.
Among those new productions just so happens to be the Tom Holland led adaptation of ‘Uncharted.’ The movie is somewhat based on the video game series and instead of ripping from the games, it will apparently be a prequel story of a time before the video games’ stories. Holland will be playing the protagonist of the games, Nathan Drake, and it is hoped by Nolan North, the voice actor for the character, that the story will stay original. In the games, the player controls Drake as they uncover hidden, often mystical treasures that have been lost to time and he is often aided by his mentor, a man named Sully. From what we know about the upcoming film, it will apparently be the story of how Drake even met Sully and why he ended up as Drake’s mentor.
Production for the movie was just about to begin when the coronavirus pandemic hit and they had no choice but to shut down indefinitely. No one was quite sure what the “indefinitely” part of that statement really meant, but neither did the actual production crew. As soon as productions were allowed to start up again and the equipment, cast, and crew were squared away then they would be ready to start. It would seem that it is around now that they have officially started production for the film. Following the long shut down and delay for the film’s production, Tom Holland recently posted a set photo for the film, essentially confirming that they have started the production process. As of now the release date for the film is set for approximately one year from now and although many films are being delayed, they are trying to make that date. We will have to wait and see now if they can actually pull it off and we can see it by summer of next year.
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