By George Robbins
In the early 2000’s, the world received a very well done animated series in the form of ‘Static Shock.’ This show was one that was aired in the morning before most children went to school and showed us a hero we never got to see on television before. At the time, there were never really any African American heroes on television and this show gave us a character many kids could look up to. Static Shock was a hero that a lot of young children could relate to and, all around, the show gave insight into issues faced by a teen at the time. He easily became a recognizable hero to anyone who watched the show and it was a show that even adults could enjoy if they watched it.
‘Static Shock’ was a show that gave people an idea as to what minorities and people living in low income areas sometimes had to deal with at the time. It presented this world to us in a way that show what a world of heroes and villains would be like in everyday situations. Not everything is as black and white as people would expect it to be and this came through with the show. No matter what type of household you came from, ‘Static Shock’ was a show that anyone could have watched and learned from. While the target demographic for the comic was mainly African American, the show did very well as one of WB Kids’ best animated shows.
The original comic of the same name was created by a subsidiary of DC called Milestone Comics which was established mainly by a group of African American artists. ‘Static Shock’ quickly became one of their best selling comics and it was decided by Warner Bros. that they would begin airing an animated series based off it. It was the first animated series to feature a young African American man in the leading role and it went on to receive a number of different rewards, including an Emmy. Unfortunately, the series only lasted for four seasons, but it was recently unveiled by a former artist who worked on it that there was an animated movie based off the character that was meant to be made.
While it is unlikely that the movie will be made any time in the near future due to the way the world currently is, there is still the possibility it could be made. After all, we have have an incredible number of comic book movies be made in the past decade and this would be a perfect character to make a film about. The movie storyboards have pretty much already been made, it would just be a matter of whether the production company would allow the film to be made. I know I’m definitely not the only person who would want to see a feature length movie be made for the character and I do hope one gets made.
By George Robbins
With the world still essentially in lock-down due to the coronavirus pandemic, many movies that people were looking forward to working on or watching have had to be delayed. There were a lot of films that were set to be released to theaters which have been delayed to later dates this year and even next year. Those films are not exactly the worst off in this situation and, in fact, they are not going to be worse off necessarily. The movies whose productions are finished but their releases were delayed are not in a terrible position all things considered. The movies that are currently in the worst position are the ones that must still be filmed since movie productions are a tougher issue to work through right now.
Movie productions have all shut down at this point with many production studios unsure of just when they will be able to restart filming for their movies. Some productions have recently received good news when it was announced that the U.K. would be relaxing lock-down rules a bit in order to accommodate things like movie productions. Many other countries around the world have yet to make any similar announcements which means many other productions will not be able to resume any time soon. This is troublesome since many big budget films will not be able to resume any time soon based off the way this is all going.
One such big budget film is the next chapter in the ‘Jurassic World’ franchise, ‘Jurassic World: Dominion.’ Ever since the inception of the first ‘Jurassic Park,’ the franchise has continued to sell very well even if the films don’t do so well critically. Most recently, the ‘Jurassic World’ part of the franchise has made a name for itself as a box office juggernaut. This just goes to show that the market for dinosaur films filled with action is still there even after so many years. There are a large number of actors that have been a part of the franchise up until now and even some returning actors from the original trilogy. One of those actors is Sam Neill who will be returning in ‘Dominion’ and he is hopeful that filming will be able to resume soon.
The film production for the last film in the ‘Jurassic World’ franchise was already underway when the pandemic hit, so they had to put it on hold in mid-March, when everything shut down. It is unknown exactly when production will be able to begin again since new health and safety regulations must be put in place if they want to re-open any time in the near future. Neill has said that they will resume filming as soon as they possibly can, but they must work with what they have, even if they have to finish in a studio. Most details for the film are currently unknown, but we know Neill will be returning in his role as Dr. Alan Grant. As of now, the film is meant to release in June of 2021, but we will just have to wait and see if it ends up delayed.
By George Robbins
Nowadays, the world can be a pretty rough place for just about everybody and it affects everyone differently. The “it” in this case is the coronavirus pandemic currently plaguing the world. Countless businesses have been affected in entirely different ways simply because people can’t be near one another. While some businesses can cope with this situation, there are many, namely in the entertainment industry, that cannot. With movie theaters shut down movies studios have had no choice but to delay their film productions and theatrical releases. Now, the game they must play is when they should release their movies.
There are currently a couple of movies that are vying for the position of first release blockbuster once theaters begin reopening their doors. Theaters, mainly the chains, plan on reopening by some time in July due to the fact that they must adhere to health and safety rules in order to do so. So studios have been working their film release schedules around this time period in order to make their films sell out seats in theaters to make their money back. There is still the major issue of consumer confidence that people need to worry about, since no one will really want to leave their houses immediately after theaters reopen, save for a few people. The question then becomes, “Will the movies that are showing be worth the risk?”
Solstice Studios is definitely trying to answer that question by putting their newest movie out into theaters when they start reopening. Their movie, ‘Unhinged,’ is a upcoming thriller film which stars Russell Crowe in a main role. He plays a character who has a fit of road rage involving a woman he only just met which sets off a deadly game of cat and mouse. The woman is played by Caren Pistorius and the film also stars Jimmi Simpson and Gabriel Bateman. This movie tells a story about the consequences of a seemingly inconsequential action due to something done at the wrong place and time.
Solstice originally had the movie planned as a September release, but they are now trying to be a part of the crowd of studios trying to be first in theaters. Most theaters should be reopened by the beginning of July, and they are trying to take advantage of that fact by making the release date the 1st of July. This is dangerous since not only must they compete with other big movies trying to accomplish the same task, but also the fact that people simply might not want to go to the movies. This is the risk that all of the studios are taking by making their films available in theaters the month that most will be reopening. Simultaneously, they may be a part of the group that helped get people out to the movies in the first place, so it is a wait-and-see scenario.
By George Robbins
As many people have probably noticed by now, while many businesses are reopening or have plans to do so soon, movie productions are another subject entirely. Like the movie theaters the films will be showing in, film productions are going to have a lot of set restrictions to them when they resume. This means that many productions will either take longer to complete or they will have to wait until restrictions aren’t too bad. Many companies thus far have had to push back release dates for their movies all the way into next year due to the fact they aren’t sure when they can continue working on their films.
Many people became happy recently when it was announced that the U.K. would be relaxing a bit on its lockdown restrictions which would allow for the continued production of films. This opened up a series of possibilities for production companies since they could now make decisions about when they can finish their projects for release in theaters. However, it would appear that some movie productions will not be moving forward once the restrictions are eased up a bit, and they will instead be staying on hold for the foreseeable future. Those two movies would be ‘The Batman’ and the next sequel in the ‘Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them’ franchise.
When the pandemic began, ‘The Batman’ had already started filming before that had to cancel shooting for the film. With the original release date for the movie set for June of 2021, Warner Bros. had to delay the release a total of four months as of right now. ‘Fantastic Beasts 3’ was just getting ready for production to start when everything went south, so they have less to worry about and they can choose any moment to start up again. Even with the relaxing of restrictions they are deciding not to start up their film production again.
Warner Bros. is playing it safe with these two films in order to prevent much worse delays from eventually taking hold of those two films. They are however pushing forward with plans to continue production for the newest ‘Matrix’ sequel. WB wants to ensure that they can efficiently use the resources and talent at their disposal in order to get the film completed in an orderly manner. The other two films they know they will be able to work with on a later times table because the filming for them is much more lax by comparison. If they mess up now and get ahead of themselves they could end up making their delays much longer than they need to be and they could lose a lot of money.
By George Robbins
Not too long ago we found out that the Matrix trilogy would no longer be a trilogy when a fourth film for the franchise was announced. The plot of the film is unknown to the public at large and we are not expecting to hear much about it for awhile yet. The film was only just beginning production when everything went south due to the coronavirus pandemic. When that happened, the filmmakers had no choice but to shut down production and hope that they would be able to start up production again as soon as possible. This situation is a tough one to be in because there is absolutely no way of telling when a good time to start up production again would be.
The ‘Matrix’ franchise is one that captivated audiences the world over for its, at the time, entertaining CGI work. Also, it gave many philosophers something to think about because the Wachowskis, the directors, wanted to make a movie that had a lot of meaning behind it as well. The third film ended in such a way that we would never have expected there to be a follow-up to it. When a movie has finality to it then the only reason a new movie would be made is if there is a new story to tell. Hopefully it will be a story that is worth the long wait since the end of the last film.
From the middle of March and extending all the way up through now and the following months many businesses have had to shut down to prevent further spread of the virus. Not only did businesses have to shut down, but companies that do contractual work like production companies have had to shut down. The reason for that is because jobs like that usually have a lot of people travelling in groups in order to get work done. So movie productions, which are usually comprised of many different people in a relatively moderate space. This being a majorly dangerous way of spreading disease resulted in all productions worldwide being shut down with no resuming dates available yet.
While no real dates are available for when studios can restart their filming productions, it is difficult to get an idea as to when movies will even get to release. These delays are a complete unknown to the film industry since there has never been worldwide pandemic while films were being made. However, even though it is uncertain exactly when most companies will be able to resume filming, some companies have dates in mind for when they would like to continue doing so. Warner Bros. has made the decision that the long awaited Matrix sequel will be able to resume filming some time in July of this year.
By George Robbins
Currently, people in this world are essentially trapped indoors due to the coronavirus pandemic. While some places are slowly starting to reopen businesses with restrictions, the majority of people will not want to leave their homes. The fact remains that the virus is still out there and is still as dangerous as it was before, it’s just that the number of newly infected cases is staying low. Since a lot of people understand the fact that the virus is just as dangerous now as when the pandemic just began, they are not going to leave the house for anything other than necessities any time soon. So with that in mind, streaming services are doing what they can to keep people entertained in order to keep most people from going stir crazy.
Speaking in general, Disney+ launched at a pretty good time which gave them plenty of opportunity to get the site working properly. Everything immediately started going downhill not too long afterwards which gave them an opportunity to test how well their streaming service actually runs. The answer to that is it runs very well and is now one of the main sources of entertainment for people who are stuck inside during lockdown and gives people a way to find some kind of solace during this period of time. That being said, eventually people are going to start getting a little bored and may want some new content. This is where ‘Frozen 2’ comes into the mix.
‘Frozen 2,’ as we all know by now, is the hit sequel to the original ‘Frozen’ film that so many people around the world fell in love with. The awaited sequel to the first film was liked by many as shown by its over $700 million that it made in the box office. An animated film that plays out as smoothly as that is not a film that is by any means easy to make and could take years in development by professionals. Which is exactly what happened with this movie and now we will have an opportunity to see exactly how the film was made and processes it took to be able to make the movie.
Disney has made a behind-the-scenes documentary detailing exactly what they had to do in order to make this animated film. All of the detail that went into how the film plays out and the technology that they used in order to make the movie look so incredible visually. These types of documentaries aren’t really anything new, but this will be one of the first ones to grace the Disney+ platform and will give people something interesting to watch while they are stuck at home. For those wondering just when they will be able to go onto the streaming site and watch the documentary, it will release on June 26th. So if you haven’t seen the movie the documentary is based off, then go watch it before its release.
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