By George Robbins
There are a lot of franchises out there nowadays trying their best to grab the attention of people of all ages by appealing to the things they like. Perhaps one of the most unique franchises out there right now is the Star Wars franchise which has become wildly successful since the release of the original film in 1977. Directed by George Lucas, the original ‘Star Wars‘ was a film that had never really been done before and this was heavily reflected in the vast popularity of the movie both on release and post-release. It has been noted on a number of occasions that no one is really sure why the movie has become so popular as time has gone on. Even George Lucas thought that the movie would end up being a failure, but this turned out to be the exact opposite of how things would end up turning out in the end.
The unprecedented success of the first film made it easy for them to eventually come out with ‘The Empire Strikes Back‘ which would soon be followed by ‘Return of the Jedi.’ What many people found interesting about the movies was not the actual stories of the films so much as the universe that the stories take place in. There are plenty of people that like the movies because of the stories, but that is far from the only thing that people like it for. In the end, it was the expansive universe that ended up drawing people in and got them involved in the lore of the movies and how they have continued to be so involved with the films as time has gone on. The universe that all of the Star Wars content is set in gave rise to countless stories over the years that fans have fallen in love with and it has become obvious that few sci-fi stories could be told the same way today.
There are plenty of science fiction universes out there that have expansive stories involved with them, but Star Wars has succeeded in getting people invested because of the premise. The story focuses entirely on a separate galaxy from the one that we reside in and the stories are set thousands of years in the past which has given food for thought to countless people over the years. It is a setting that has allowed people to weave their own intricate narratives that may not even have anything to do with the stories from the films, but they have become wildly popular with people over the years. Over time, the number of stories being written about the Star Wars universe had managed to reach a point where things started getting out of hand for the most part. People began wondering just what was being made canon in the Star Wars universe to begin with and what was just fan-fiction.
Some of the fan written stories have been regarded as perhaps some of the best Star Wars content out there that was available to the general public. Unfortunately, it would be awhile before any official word was released which gave people an idea as to what was going to be considered official Star Wars canon. When Disney bought out Lucasfilm, they made it official as to what would be considered canon in the Star Wars universe, and to no one’s surprise, pretty much all of the fan-fiction was considered non-canon. Luckily, most new Star Wars content these days is considered to be a part of the Star Wars canon because the people working on that content need permission from Disney before they can make it. This is how we ended up with all of the new content being put out becoming important to the universe that people know and love.
There was debate as to what would end up becoming canon to the Star Wars universe after Disney made their announcement, but to make things easier to follow, they released the Star Wars books, shows, and games which would be considered canon in their new continuity. This would easily allow long time fans to follow along with what is now happening in the Star Wars universe while also making it possible for people to be on the lookout for new canon-approved content. Even the stories that were not really considered canon have been recognized as being very good stories to be told in the universe. No matter how we look at how some content is handled canon-wise, the fact remains that it is still a universe that a lot of people are in love with. This has allowed the franchise to continue, and even expand, at this point because they continue to draw in new crowds to see and experience the new stuff they put out there.
After Disney took over the rights for the Star Wars franchise, they immediately announced their plans to begin work on new movies and other content. They would then allow the shows that were already out to continue and made them a part of the canon which is how the cartoons tie into the whole franchise. Often times, the side stories and other content available for the wider story in the universe show what happens between or before the mainline movies with ties to various other forms of media. Making new mainline movies was not the only original goal in the minds of people working at Disney because they would eventually announce that they would be making side story films. The idea behind those films was to release a side story about characters in the universe that happened before or between timelines from the movies.
Unfortunately, that plan ended up going out the window after the release of the second side story film and thus the plans for future films was scrapped in the end. On the brighter side of things, they would still come up with plans to make shows that are based the same way that the movies were supposed to be. The most profound instance of this just so happens to be one of their most popular IP’s right now which is ‘The Mandalorian.’ The show focuses on a bounty hunter in the Star Wars universe who takes on a variety of jobs to continue living as he wants. Of course, he is the titular Mandalorian and people in the show recognize him as such which is something that many hardcore fans have been looking forward to. The show turned out to be far different from what people were originally thinking though, so people were obviously surprised by the outcome.
Many people were hoping that the planned film would be a story which focused on the story of the bounty hunter Boba Fett who had become iconic to many people over the years. Yet again, this is another situation that no one expected to see because he had such a small role in the original movies and a mention in the prequel trilogy. Regardless, people began considering him to be one of the greatest bounty hunters in the Star Wars universe and they wanted to see a story which centers on him at some point. There was content which released over the years which explained what happened to him after his fall into the Sarlacc Pit in ‘Return of the Jedi.’ Everyone had assumed him to be dead after that, but the truth, as it turns out, was that he did not die after falling in and he instead managed to survive in the beast’s stomach before eventually escaping.
With that backstory available to Disney, people were hoping that this would be the direction they would take things when they announced their plans for a ‘Mandalorian’ movie a while back. Unfortunately, there was not enough buzz going around with the Han Solo story that they released and therefore they considered the side story stuff to be a failure. Next, they would announce that it would instead be a new show that would premiere on their Disney+ streaming service with the focus being on a new character. The show is meant to be a canon story which is actually set between the original trilogy and the sequel trilogy timelines as a means of setting up various storylines that could happen between the many years seen between movies. It is because of the vast possibilities that we can now see various characters from earlier in the series’ timeline returning despite everything we thought may have happened to them.
Most recently, we have seen this in action with the return of one Ahsoka Tano to the series for the first time since her role in the Clone Wars story arc. Star Wars ‘The Clone Wars’ was easily one of the most popular Star Wars shows out there and it set a pretty high standard for Star Wars shows moving forward. While it may have been a cartoon, it has been regarded as one of the best cartoons that has ever been made because of both the animation and the story told throughout the show. The setting of the show actually takes place between the second and third prequel film and shows exactly what happened during the titular Clone Wars which saw its conclusion in the third Prequel film. There was a lot of time in-between those two movies that had to be accounted for and they did just that when they released the show.
The ‘Clone Wars’ show was played out until they reached the point where the two timelines ended up matching up with one another and then we knew the result with the ‘Revenge of the Sith’ movie. That would not be the only well-regarded movie though, because as it would turn out, they would also go on to make a Star Wars ‘Rebels’ show which shows what happened five years before the start of the original ‘Star Wars’ film. It followed the Galactic Empire who were hunting down the last of the Jedi while also showing how the rebellion first started taking form. This was the last time in Star Wars canon that people were able to see Ahsoka Tano as a part of the overall Star Wars universe, until now that is. She made her return in ‘The Mandalorian’s’ “Chapter 13: The Jedi” which finally gave the character her first live-action appearance. Before then, she had only really been seen in the aforementioned cartoons, hiding away from the Empire while assisting where she could.
In the cartoons, she began as Anakin Skywalker’s apprentice who eventually had to hide from her former friends and allies after they started eliminating Jedi. By the time of ‘Rebels,’ it was shown that she had aged a lot due to the passing of time and this became most apparent with her head tails. As many fans have made note of, Ahsoka’s race have the tails on their heads get longer as they get older and they are a sign of a mature member of her race. This means that by the time of the ‘Mandalorian’ show, they should have been even longer, but they ended up being almost as short as they were in the original ‘Clone Wars’ cartoon. Fans, being Star Wars fans, immediately started questioning the reason for why the character, played by Rosario Dawson, was portrayed this way on screen. In response to the questions being asked, character designer Brian Matyas immediately responded to the question on his Twitter page.
The simple answer that pretty much answers everyone’s questions is that it was easier for the actor if the tails were shorter because movement had to be factored in. Matyas said that he played around with many different kinds of designs which could possibly translate from the animations to live-action, but this was the best option. Sometimes, there needs to be a compromise so that characters and objects that people loved could be introduced back into the story in some way. In this case, the compromise was a slightly different design for the character for the sake of range of movement so that the acting can be much more natural. Being able to move and do stunts properly is much better in the end than a bad performance because of a slight appearance difference. Hopefully fans will be able to understand this and they will accept this explanation without dragging this issue out.
By George Robbins
While normally a strong opening weekend for movies, Thanksgiving weekend worked a bit differently this year and there was nothing that could be done about it. The pandemic has strongly affected movie releases since it started back in March earlier this year which has led to countless films being pushed from this year’s roster or doing terribly at the box office. There are plenty of films that were meant to have released by now but many studios are not taking any risks and are now trying to get their films to release in timeframes where things will be better for release. There have been a couple of attempts by studios thus far to try and get people to go back out to the movies and this hasn’t stopped. Studios are trying to get people back out to theaters to the best of their abilities, but there is a limit to what they can do in the end.
The movie that was meant to be able to test the waters of the movie market was the movie ‘Tenet,’ but the only thing to end up happening was that the movie ended up being a failure in the end. While the movie ended up having a relatively strong opening weekend in both the international and domestic markets, it quickly started going downhill. This is what led many other studios to move all of their films out of this year’s time slots and push them into next year. The year has yet to end though, and many other films have still been slated for some kind of release from now until year’s end. This is why we are now seeing a situation where many films are releasing on digital after 17 days in theaters, or they are being released at the same time on both digital and in theaters.
Unfortunately, there weren’t really any options available for this past weekend that people were interested in going to see because studios don’t want to release their films. Among the movies that actually released was an animated movie called ‘The Croods: A New Age‘ which ended up taking home the award this past weekend of highest box office. Despite a long and rough development process, the sequel to 2013’s ‘The Croods’ finally managed to have its official release and it is somewhat paying off. While not having a traditionally strong opening weekend, the movie still managed to do fairly well in its own right. The movie was even on track to beat out ‘Tenet’ in its opening weekend box office which wasn’t really a small amount. What is really important moving forward is if the movie will continue to bring in money over the next few weekends, or will it end up like ‘Tenet.’
By George Robbins
This year has been one with a lot of ups and downs which has caused many things to happen that no one would have ever expected to happen and the year isn’t over yet. While most industries are currently suffering due to the pandemic at the moment, we have all been made aware by now that it is the film industry which is having perhaps the hardest time. Most of that, of course, stems from the fact that movie theaters aren’t really functioning at max capacity right now due to the fact that they have their own new rules they must follow. Health guidelines aside, people just haven’t been comfortable with going out to the movies again because it is considered by the vast public to be way too risky. Therefore, theaters have been losing business hand-over-fist and they can’t help but be worried about their future which is definitely within the realm of reason.
When theaters reopened, they were excited and nervous to have new movies to show because it would provide a perfect opportunity to test the market. Testing the market is not easy and usually requires a sacrificial lamb and in this case that lamb just so happened to be the movie ‘Tenet. ‘ ‘Tenet’ was expected to be the Christopher Nolan blockbuster which would be able to bring people back to theaters and it was on track to be a massive release, but it was easy to see just after launch that the movie was definitely suffering from the current climate. The movie released to a strong degree, though nowhere near as strong as it was originally going to be before the pandemic hit. Therefore, it was expected that this trend would continue as the weeks went on, but this would turn out to not be the case as the movie would go on to make much less in the next few weeks.
When other studios saw what would happen if they tried to release their biggest films this year, they immediately pushed all of their films into either the end of the year or some time next year. Those that decided to keep a date for this year will either be releasing straight to digital, releasing to theaters for 17 days before releasing on digital, or releasing on both platforms at once. These are the current options for dealing with these sorts of things at the moment and there is no telling if things will even work out for those that are doing this. Those that have released in theaters before releasing on digital managed to bring in a few million to help theaters, but everyone knows it is not enough to help theaters stay afloat during this period of time. Therefore, most aren’t even bothering with releasing their films and will instead be waiting until a better timeframe to release their films.
While many new movies will not be able to show properly, this year has still been a big year for certain movies which has led to a lot of different discussion. Of course, the pandemic is the reason why so much is different this year as opposed to previous years, owing to the fact no movies can really release in theaters at the moment which has led to major things happening. Before the pandemic began, any movies that were out beforehand managed to have decent theatrical runs, especially those released in early February or earlier. Among those movies to have luckily released before the pandemic began was the ‘Sonic the Hedgehog‘ movie which easily managed to break a couple of records. This movie was one that no one expected to be good and that worked in its favor.
When everyone heard that there was going to be a movie based on the video game character Sonic the Hedgehog, they immediately thought that the movie wasn’t going to be good in any way. When the first trailer for the movie released, even those who were still holding out hope that the movie could be decent gave up due to the character design. After enough people complained, they delayed the release of the film in order to completely redesign the character before the movie’s actually had a release. What they came back with was a version of the character which was much more grounded by the original character design and people decided they would go see the movie upon release. The end result of the whole movie’s campaign was the fact that the movie ended up doing really well at the box office.
No one would have expected, based upon the trailers of the film, that the movie would actually end up doing as well as it did at the box office. Being a video game movie, and one that no one was expecting anything from, the movie already had a strong bias against it from the start which made it difficult for the movie to begin with. Luckily, the movie’s release of the original trailer and its rework led to people becoming curious about the film which plays into the phrase, “Any publicity is good publicity.” Having grossed just over $300 million, this movie has become the most successful video game movie to date which led to there being talks of a sequel. Not only is it the highest grossing domestic video game film, but it is also going to be taking another record away this year.
Marvel Studios’ MCU films usually take home the title of not only the highest grossing superhero films, but also the highest grossing films of the year sometimes. They have been keeping up that tradition for awhile now and they didn’t plan on stopping. Unfortunately, the pandemic prevented this from happening and now the title of highest grossing superhero movie for the year will go to ‘Sonic the Hedgehog.’ Now, moving forward with the unexpected popularity of the first film, they will be starting production on ‘Sonic the Hedgehog 2’ in March 2021 for a probable 2022 release date. The unexpected popularity of the movie was not only based upon its references to the video games themselves, but also the new-to-universe feel the movie had. There was something for every crowd to see in the movie and that definitely helped the movie along in the end.
Now, going along with the theme of playing along with references from the video games, the current name of the sequel’s production is ‘Emerald Hill.’ For those unaware, this is an area in the original Sonic 2 video game which is something fans of the character will most definitely enjoy. As of now, this is just a working title, but based upon what happened at the end of the first film, we have no idea what will happen in the upcoming sequel. While we may have to guess what will be happening in the upcoming film and what its title will be, there is no doubt that it will definitely end up catching people’s attentions. Whether this ends up being a good thing or a bad thing is also unknown, but we will definitely have to keep our eyes open for the upcoming sequel.
By George Robbins
This year has been a pretty long one thus far and there is still a month left before it ends, but the end of the year won’t end the pandemic or the other problems we have. As of now, countless industries are currently suffering because of the pandemic and among those that are struggling is the movie industry. In the movie industry, it has been made known that filming hasn’t been impeded in the same way as movie releases, but it can still be difficult. Movie releases are in the most trouble because there is no reliable method to get movies out to the public the way they used to be due to theaters effectively being put down once again. When this pandemic began, movie theaters and movie productions shut down because they were forced to in the same way that pretty much every other type of business had to be.
Businesses that were deemed non-essential when the pandemic began were flagged and shut down until things started getting better with the pandemic. For a few months afterward, most everything else was shut down due to the emergency state we were all forced to adhere to and eventually they could reopen. At first it was things like restaurants which were able to reopen first, but only with outdoor dining in order to help people adhere to the new social distancing rules in place. Next, it was public places like parks which could finally allow visitors once again while still following the social distancing rules. As time went on, the list just kept getting longer and eventually, come August, most movie theaters were able to reopen to the public. Of course they had the same social distancing rules in place and people, like everywhere else, needed to wear masks if they wanted to go there.
Unlike restaurants and parks though, movie theaters had the add caveat that people would not be allowed to take off their masks even when seated because it would be too much of a hazard. Things were beginning to look up for theaters because they could finally get people through their front doors for the first time in months. Unfortunately only a couple of weeks later, things would turn out to not be as great as originally anticipated because it turned out people were still wary about going out to theaters. What happened was that the release of the movie ‘Tenet‘ was expected to be a massive blockbuster release which should have been the movie to bring people back to theaters. Unfortunately, things did not turn out well for the studio or theaters, for that matter, because the movie ended up failing in the domestic market after the first week.
After the first few weeks in the domestic market, ‘Tenet’ only started pulling in a few million each of the following weekends while still managing to bring some money in from the international market. That may not sound too bad, but the fact remains that they needed $500 million to break even before marketing costs and after months in both markets they haven’t really reached that yet. The failure of the movie theater market immediately made other studios decide to just push back all of their future blockbuster releases into next year to await a better release window. This had resulted in theaters having to scramble for movies to show because they had almost nothing left to show but old movies by that point. They have managed to get a couple of films released on their screens since then with one of the bigger ones most recently being the movie ‘Freaky.’
Even though they got a couple of movies to release on their screens, they were still left unable to do anything because the movies didn’t bring in a lot of money. They were lucky enough to make some money off of the movies that released, but it won’t be enough to save a lot of them from the financial ruin they are now suffering from. Movie theaters are just in a lot of trouble at the moment and it will take a lot in order to keep them from shutting down especially now that the pandemic is getting worse again. Even with the new deal theaters made being on the table- which allows movies to release digitally after only 17 days– many movies are still waiting for better release windows that won’t be seen for a long time yet. In the meantime, theaters are trying their best to make up for the lack of new content.
Movie theaters have been having a rough go of trying to get new movies put onto their screens because studios aren’t interested in losing large portions of money when they know they can avoid it. Instead of releasing to theaters now, many movies were pushed back so that they could possibly release when people are more comfortable. That isn’t likely to really happen any time soon with this new wave of the virus going around though, so many movies have been pushed back pretty far. With such a dangerous situation in play, it isn’t any surprise that this is what they would do given how everyone else feels about what is happening in the world. Given that, studios have the three options ahead of them that they are taking now which would be to either wait for release, release their movies on digital, or release their movies in theaters now and release on digital in a few weeks.
The last option is the route that some movies are taking in an effort to try and make money now during this period of time. If not for the ability to be able to decide exactly how they want to release their film, studios are doing this to try and help theaters which would help in the long run. Without any movies releasing any time soon, theaters are just spiraling more and more out of control trying to make up for the money they have lost this year. Many blockbuster films are now actually taking the second path of release as of late because it is the best chance a movie could have at doing well. This is the best chance they have to do well if they are releasing directly to digital because it is the perfect chance to get people to buy it without seeing the theatrical reviews. This makes it easier for studios to make a cash grab on new films because people will mass buy it the day of release.
Bigger studios are relying much more on digital releases now because they usually have their own streaming services now which they are trying to attract people to. The best possible way of drawing new people into a streaming service would be to add as much new content to that service as possible to get more people interested. By diversifying what content is available, and by making bigger titles available on said service, studios can draw more attention to that service. Studios with streaming services are the ones that have the best chance of making money during this pandemic because they can get people to get a subscription where they will make money on a monthly basis. Specifically, Warner Media is trying their best to get people to come to their HBO Max service because since its launch in May earlier this year, it hasn’t been as successful as they would have hoped.
As already mentioned, Warner has their HBO Max service as their main method of earning money from this pandemic and it already isn’t going well for them. They were the studio behind the ‘Tenet’ launch as well so they are also hurting from that as well so they are trying to come up with better ways to get people to come to their service. The best chance they have at doing that, as already stated, is to make content exclusive to the platform. As annoying as it might be to have to sign up for a service for exclusive content, it is actually the main way that many streaming services can go on with getting people to sign up for them. If exclusive content wasn’t widely available to the public they would have to throw money at the streaming service and this is how they plan on staying afloat at the moment.
At the moment, the streaming service that is having a hard time is HBO Max because people just aren’t as interested in it as they are with other services. The draw with HBO Max was supposed to be the fact that all of HBO’s content would be readily available from the service and people could watch it any time they wanted to. Regardless of what people may think about the service, the fact that they made pretty much their entire library available is still impressive for the most part because it presents literally thousands of hours of content. They were hoping that this would be enough, but unfortunately it was not and now they are scrambling to come up with a better way to get people to pay for the service. The only thing they had going for them was next year’s release of the Zack Snyder Cut of ‘Justice League’ that they announced when Max first launched earlier this year.
It would appear as though they have finally decided upon what they will be doing moving forward, and more specifically director Patty Jenkins. Jenkins is known for her work on ‘Wonder Woman‘ and its upcoming sequel ‘Wonder Woman 1984‘ and she has made it now known that the sequel will release straight to digital by means of HBO Max. This is definitely not an easy decision to have been made, but it is the one that she decided upon because of the current state of the world right now. While it would have been easy enough to have the release date pushed back further for a possibly better release window, this is a rough decision to have to make. The issue is that the movie was supposed to release in June but the pandemic pushed it back to August which was then given way under the weight of the failure of theaters because people weren’t going out to them. Now the film is set to release on December 25th which is usually a good spot for movies at the end of the year to sit on.
Unfortunately, as we all know, this year is different from any year prior and thus this window isn’t what it used to be and that has people worried. If things aren’t going to go as originally planned, there isn’t much of a choice left but to either delay again or release the film and they have chosen to go with the latter option in this case. It isn’t too difficult to see why ‘WW84’ is going to release on digital instead of being delayed again. People will eventually get tired of the film being delayed and the number of people who would want to see it would end up dropping significantly. This also leans into the fact that HBO Max needs to get more subscribers in order to become a better streaming service. This is a good opportunity for them to try and get more people subscribed to the service before things start to spiral out of control and they lose even more money.
This decision is one that is not really being met with any backlash, with director Joe Russo saying it is actually a “brave” decision on Jenkins’ part and that it is a respectable decision. Russo is known for his work on the MCU, especially ‘Infinity War’ and ‘Endgame’ which have both been known as crowning jewels in the MCU in terms of popularity and box office. The movie will release both digitally and in theaters on the same day and it has been recognized by Russo that this is probably the future of the movie industry moving forward, especially with movie theaters doing as bad as they are now. This much-anticipated sequel is without a doubt one of the films that could help Warner, though it remains to be seen if it will be able to help out movie theaters. Many decisions in the movie industry moving forward are all going to go over the same way, so the future of movie releases is a long and arduous one.
By George Robbins
There are many a movie which have managed to become placed near the top of the cinema world and among them, there are a few thrillers, but not with a shark as the main villain. ‘Jaws’ did something that almost no other movie had done before its release in that it made a thriller film with a shark as the main villain of the film. Normally in a thriller it was common to only ever see people as the main villains of the film, but ‘Jaws’ turned that entirely on its head. “Just how could a shark be made out as a thriller villain?” was a question that many people probably asked themselves at the time of the first film’s release back in 1975. What they quickly discovered is that a shark is pretty much the perfect stalking predator to be considered for a role as a villain in a thriller film because no one can see it even if it is right next to them.
What many people failed to consider at the time is that water is not as see through as people would expect it to be and therefore it is very easy for someone swimming in the ocean to not notice a large predator. If a predator is in the water below you, then it will try its best to stay underwater until such time that it may need to surface to get something it needs. Otherwise, it could swim right past you without you knowing and then it can grab you and drag you under before you even have a chance to scream. People came to realize this fact as a strong possibility in the world after watching the first ‘Jaws’ and people instantly became afraid of sharks swimming up to them and eating them like the movie showed. What many people don’t know is that, while yes sharks do attack humans every now and then, it is because they are mostly just desperate for food or they think that humans are actually something else.
A little known fact is that sharks get attracted to people swimming in the water because they think that it might be a sea lion or some other type of animal they would normally eat and they only do that when they need food due to hunger. As a result, people instantly assume that sharks will try to hunt people down on a regular basis because of what they had seen in ‘Jaws.’ Another fact that people may not realize unless told is that, although Great White Sharks are what is shown in the movies, it is actually Bull Sharks that will pretty much attack anything they can get their teeth on. Yet again ‘Jaws’ made it seem like every shark that could possibly be in the water would try to come after people no matter what because they like eating people. It is actually pretty incredible to see how much of an impact the movie has managed to make over the years and how many people it created a fear of the ocean in.
Another thing that a lot of people may not know about but it is relatively common knowledge in Hollywood is that the original ‘Jaws’ had a platitude of production problems that it had to deal with. First of all, the movie had an incomplete script when they finally started filming the movie and therefore they had to get everything done quickly before they started with three different writers working on the script. Another thing people may not have known was that the casting took much longer to complete than initially thought because they had a hard time casting Quint and Brody, as well as the fact that Richard Dreyfuss initially turned down the role of Hooper before coming back asking for the role. Things didn’t get much better on the set after this because Robert Shaw, who played Quint, and Richard Dreyfuss regularly got into arguments on set because Shaw thought that Dreyfuss was being too full of himself on set.
Beyond just the casting situation and the script not being finished on time, the mechanical and technical aspects of the movie also suffered from various setbacks while they were in production. First of all, the mechanical shark that they used in the film would malfunction, a lot, so they had to constantly stop making the film just to fix it before filming again. Beyond just the malfunctioning shark, they had to deal with a lot more trouble in regards to schedule and budget as they went way over both of those things. A lot of time and money could be attributed to the malfunctioning animatronic and the fact that the movie was shot on location in Martha’s Vineyard in order to make the film more realistic. A lot of the malfunctioning was happening during crucial filming as well, but they were finally able to finish filming the movie.
Despite everything that had happened on the production of ‘Jaws,’ the movie ended up becoming a smash hit which ended up taking home a killer amount of money at the box office during its theatrical run. Not only that, but the movie ended up getting three Academy Awards once award season rolled around though Spielberg would not get Best Director for quite some time afterward. All these years later, they have decided to make a huge part of cinematic history a part of movie history forever by putting it in a museum. This is why the last remaining model of the shark from ‘Jaws’ is now going to find what we hope will be its permanent home in the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. The massive model will become available for viewing when the museum opens in April 2021.
By George Robbins
Many genre defining films have been released over the years, but it was around the time of the 80’s and 90’s that we finally saw things defining the way we now get to see movies these days. Many movies have some aspect to them that make them definable in some kind of category and during those years, many different types of movies ended up releasing which defined entire genres from that point on. This is why slasher films influenced the horror genre for years to come and why the entire genre ended up getting a kind of rebranding after a certain amount of time had passed. Other than just slashers were the supernatural sub-genre in which monsters ended up being included after enough time had passed. Some of those monster films ended up changing a lot of things in the genre for time to come.
Creature features were easily one of the most interesting types of films to ever come into existence and they would easily be considered horror movies for years after their inception. They were considered wildly different from monster movies as they were often times plots which saw countless creatures causing mayhem. No other movie from the era was more in-line with the definition of a creature feature then the movie ‘Gremlins.’ This movie was easily one of the most interesting for its time due to the chaos and mayhem seen throughout the film as well as the exorbitant amount of violence seen throughout. The violence seen in the film ended up being the driving force for an entirely new rating needing to be added to the MPAA so that the film could even be released in the first place.
The MPAA, or Motion Picture Association of America, is the name of the organization in the United States that decides what the rating of a movie would be before it could release to theaters. Many of the ratings are pretty self-explanatory and they describe exactly what will be seen in the movie, if only for a short amount of time. At the start of every movie, or at least when the movie is being advertised, we always see the rating pop up on screen as well as the short descriptors for why it has that rating to begin with. For those who don’t normally pay attention the ratings are as follows: G is for general audiences, PG means with parental guidance suggested, PG-13 means parental guidance is strongly suggested, and R is restricted for those under 17 unless accompanied by a parent or guardian. There are a few other ratings, but these are the ones we generally see.
While the G, PG, and R ratings have been around for a long time, the classifications for each have changed drastically as time goes on. This means that some movies that would be rated PG-13 or R may have had a lower rating in the past for various reasons or vice versa. What many people may not know is that the PG-13 rating was actually made in the late 80’s simply because they couldn’t find a way of expressing what the recommended age should be for a certain movie which was not explicitly rated R or PG. This movie that made the MPAA scratching their heads was ‘Gremlins’ which was easily explained to be a very violent and, at parts, disturbing movie, but it wasn’t so much so that it required an R rating. Thus, due to the fact that it was a sort of cartoon violence being shown in live-action, they had to make a new rating that would fit the description of the violence seen in the film.
‘Gremlins’ was certainly an interesting film for a lot of different people who went to go and see it because it was closer to being a strong comedy-horror movie instead of a traditional monster flick. The titular Gremlins were meant to be creatures that just thrived on mayhem and they didn’t necessarily kill people on purpose. They did whatever they thought would be funny to do and for the audience watching, it was a sort of black comedy humor that people with strong senses of humor would latch onto. Due to this, it was easy to see that the movie would have a successful future which is exactly why the movie ended up getting a sequel after enough time had passed. By that I mean that just a couple of years later at the dawn of the 90’s the movie ended up getting a sequel that a lot of different people were excited for.
The aptly named ‘Gremlins 2: The New Batch’ amped up the chaos that we had seen in the first film and it even went through the trouble of making sure that there would be more comedic moments this time around. For those unaware of the premises of both films, the first film focused on a creature called a Mogwai which was originally kept in an old man’s shop until a man buys it as a pet for his son. The man is given explicit instructions that must be followed in order for his son to be able to keep the creature. The three rules were that: the Mogwai must not be exposed to light which especially included sunlight which would kill it, it must not touch water, and it cannot be fed after midnight. Needless to say, the rules are not followed the way that they should have been and the Mogwai, now named Gizmo, accidently had water spilled on him. What followed would change the course of the film into a purely chaotic one.
Gizmo was a mild-mannered Mogwai who was kind to pretty much everyone and once he was splashed with water, he multiplied. However, unlike the original, the new ones had terrible personalities that were opposite what Gizmo’s was and they eventually trick the kid watching over them into giving them food after midnight. Thus begins the part where the Gremlins themselves come into existence and they are very distinguishable from their original Mogwai counterparts as they are now much closer to monsters rather than the furby-like appearance they had before. The mayhem that ensues sees them finding more water to replicate once again and taking over the entire town, destroying everything in their path. Eventually they managed to put down all of the gremlins by tricking them and either blow them up or have them die in sunlight.
The following movie instead saw an outbreak of the creatures in a high-tech high-rise in which the now older characters find themselves working in in New York City. Through a series of mishaps, a new batch of Mogwai is created from Gizmo once again and they find food after midnight which turns them all into Gremlins once again. This time, they went for a more comedic approach to the film and, while there is certainly still plenty of violence, the addition of different types of Gremlins this time around had made the movie all the more interesting. The second movie was released exactly in 1990 which now puts the movie at 30 years of age and makes it one of those candidates for a sequel during the modern day. At least, this is what the original movie’s screenwriter, Chris Columbus, said recently, hopefully in an attempt to get another movie made in the not too distant future.
It isn’t that much of a surprise that Columbus would recommend that such a thing could end up coming into existence because sequels to older movies coming out many years later than the original is becoming a standard. Releasing sequels is something that any studio would want to do if they had the opportunity because they know for a fact that there is an audience for said film. Now that so many years have passed since many original films have released, studios can get a better idea as to what they would be dealing with if they decided to make a remake or sequel to an old film. Cult movies are a prime example of how these sorts of things can become reality because they are movies that didn’t really have much of an audience or critical acclaim when they initially released. However, since their initial release, they have since gained a fandom that gets excited for any new content related to that subject.
The Gremlin movies remain a culturally significant pair of films even all of these years later because they have managed to get a lot of people interested in those types of creature flicks. Not only that, but people simply fell in love with the fact that everything in those movies felt so lifelike because they used puppets for all of the Gremlins, and they all looked very realistic. As a result, people have been waiting for any news on a new film and they were worried that they would replace the puppets with CGI which would be terrible as the puppets gave them life in a way that no one would have thought possible. Columbus has since made it known that if the third movie were actually to be made, then there would be little to no CGI and they would stick with the original formula. Now all we need to do is wait and see if they will actually end up making the film at the end of the day.
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