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.
By George Robbins
There are plenty of different productions going on related to Hollywood these days and some of those upcoming productions are related to older movies that haven’t been around for a while. It isn’t that new a concept to take an older movie and make a sequel to it many years later as this is usually a good way to make money on something people loved. This is usually done by taking an older movie that people loved from many years ago and making a newly updated version of that movie that, at the very least, changes things around a bit. This is perhaps the best way of creating a “new” film that people will enjoy and studios can put a lot of investment into. The other option we have seen lately has been the aforementioned one where they take films that released 20 or more years ago and they make sequels to them in order to draw people in.
The latter discussed option is the one that seems like the better suited one to get people to go out to theaters because it combines the two fields of nostalgia and something entirely new. Those movies get people interested because they remember the original films fondly and would love to see another movie be made to follow up the story of the original. This doesn’t always work out because we have seen movies get sequels that weren’t needed and it can annoy fans because to them, they ruined films that already ended exactly how they should have. If this is the case, then the new film will not produce any more unnecessary sequels because the studio would know there is no point. The damage has already been wrought by that point though and people have already paid to go and see the movie.
While making sequels to older movies may prove to be better in terms of getting people to come and see movies, there is a lot of merit in getting people to come and see remakes as well. Remakes are movies that share the name and basic story elements of other original films, but they make changes that can totally affect the outcome of the storyline. While some remakes are very faithful to their original films that they are based upon, there are others that end up changing many aspects of the film in ways no one would have expected to see. While the changes in most remakes can be seen as bad and not doing well to preserve the legacy of the original film, some remakes do a good job with it. It is entirely possible for a movie to make a lot of changes from the original and somehow come out being better than the original, but this is much less likely to happen.
With the pandemic currently affecting the world at large, there are various industries being affected by the changes put in place in order to protect the lives of various people. Among those industries that have been affected is the film industry which has been suffering pretty harshly because off everything that is happening. Movie theaters in particular have been hit the hardest and the pandemic has caused many to shut down until further notice or possibly go bankrupt. In the meantime, people on the production side of things have been looking for things to do since their movies have essentially been delayed until further notice. With a few notable exceptions being released on digital rather than awaiting theatrical release, most movies are just waiting for a time when the pandemic will end and they can be shown to the public. Assuming that theaters survive the pandemic, this is currently the plan in place to ensure that studios can make the most revenue out of their movies as possible.
Hollywood isn’t just going to sit around and wait for the pandemic to end though as they are now laser-focused on making movies that they will be releasing in the far off future. All productions, like any other business, were shut down when the pandemic first began and it took a few months before they could finally start back up again. When productions were able to actually start back up again, some of the larger ones took a while before they actually began again because there were new rules in place for them to follow in the meantime. These new rules meant that it would be difficult to get all cast and crew where they needed to be for the movies that were going to be shot on location. Even those that were not being shot on location have had a lot more to do because they had to get sets up and running quickly.
Once all productions got back up and running from where they left off, things started running smoothly once again, but the new guidelines put into place have been tough to deal with. There can only be a set amount of people on the set of the production at one time, everyone must be masked up which also includes actors when not on camera, and everyone must be distanced properly among other rules per location. Filming in various locations all over the world, they must also follow those rules as well which often include quarantine rules for before and after filming to keep the virus from spreading between countries. There have even been issues where productions have had to shut down because they had someone on set test positive for the virus which would delay the overall production. Needless to say, the production side of the movie industry isn’t having any better a time with things as of late and it isn’t going to get any easier.
While the production side of things has it rough, there is still a lot of work getting done these days which means studios will have a large back catalog to work with when things begin to settle down. This is a good thing for studios to have as it means that they won’t have to worry too much if things progressively end up getting worse and they can’t work on films anymore. Unfortunately it also means that they have to come up with release date windows for all of these films and things are still tenuous at best when it comes to this sort of thing. Therefore, what else are people in the industry going to do but continue working on new stuff to stay busy as opposed to sitting around waiting for the pandemic to end. Many have taken to instead come up with new ideas that can be turned into productions in the future, maybe when things are less hectic.
This pandemic situation is very unpredictable for the most part as we don’t know the exact moments when things will end up getting worse or they will end up getting better. A vaccine is underway, but it will still be a while before we see a marketed version of it release on the market for everyone to be vaccinated. With this being a major issue, many people working in the movie industry that are responsible for storyboarding have been thinking of many upcoming film ideas that they have made up. Writers coming up with new ideas for films during this pandemic is nothing to be surprised about, but it seems a lot of those ideas fall into the sequel category of new films. Like stated earlier, coming up with sequels to already established stories is a simpler thing to do and it is capable of drawing in crowds quite easily.
We have already seen the results of this with the upcoming ‘Mallrats 2’ that was announced by Kevin Smith not long after the pandemic began and the countless other projects people believe there should be sequels to. Smith had wanted to work on a sequel to the 90’s hit, but the pandemic was what gave him the perfect opportunity to finally work on the script. Eventually he finished said script and now we are planning to see the movie start production in the, hopefully, not-too-distant future. Smith has gone ahead and already started casting people to return to the film instead of waiting and he has already convinced much of the cast to return. When people enjoy something they worked on, they are definitely more likely to come back for more and this applies with the aforementioned sequels more than anything.
Another comedy movie from the 90’s happens to be the movie ‘Encino Man’ which, while not doing well with critics, has become a popular film over the years because of the premise and characters seen in the film. For those unaware of what the movie is actually about, it tells the story of two teen outcasts trying their best to become popular in school. While digging a hole for a swimming pool in his yard, one of the teens finds a chunk of ice after an earthquake which happens to contain a frozen human man. They soon determine from looking at him through the ice that he is a caveman and they bring him to the garage where they leave the ice block with space heaters. The caveman ends up being revived and they determine that he may just be able to help them become more popular in school when it turns out he is athletic and bizarre enough to interest the other students.
Pauly Shore, Sean Astin, and Brendan Fraser play the main characters in the coming-of-age comedy which took its place as a film from the 90’s people won’t forget. Now that this pandemic has people thinking about future film ideas, Pauly Shore recently announced that he would like to get Astin and Fraser to return for a sequel. Shore became known for the numerous roles he had in the 90’s in a variety of comedies which didn’t do well critically, but have certainly accumulated a decent amount of fans over the years. A sequel to the film would not be too far outside the realm of possibility as all of the actors could still play older versions of their characters. Needless to say, it would be one of those long-awaited sequels that we would have to be on the lookout for because of the original film.
By George Robbins
There is a lot of talk currently going on within the film community right now in regards to films that are supposed to start filming in the not too distant future. There has also been a lot to discuss in the industry when talking about films being worked on now as well. Every single film that is in the works has a lot to think about because the pandemic has made things difficult for just about everybody these days and the film industry is most notably not an exception to that. They have been dealing with having to quarantine their cast and crew for the length of entire shoots as well as following strict guidelines that make filming much more difficult than before. Not to mention the fact that if someone tests positive, an entire production can be shut down.
Despite everything that is currently going on, there are plenty of studios working to get their films worked on so that they will be ready when the pandemic is more under control. The fact still remains that movie theaters can’t really show anything right now because they are either closed or just can’t bring in customers. This has become a point of contention in the film industry since many studios still want their bigger films to have theatrical releases so that they can maximize the amount of money they make from a film’s release. If movies cannot release in theaters, then studios pretty much have no choice but to push back the release dates of their films. Unfortunately, this doesn’t help them with getting their movies out there in any meaningful way and they are left with a back-catalog of films.
Many studios are producing movies that they will not be able to show for quite awhile still and this hasn’t deterred them in any way because it is better to have more films than they can show. If they have more films than they can show, they won’t have to worry about making sure they have something to release should the industry itself suffer and productions can’t happen anymore. Among the studios working to get as many of their films ready before they can release any at all is Marvel Studios who have been announcing for months that they will be working on many films next year. They announced that ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’ will be starting filming in January 2021, ‘Ant-Man 3’ will start in June 2021, and ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3’ will start at the end of 2021. Now it seems they have a window for filming for ‘Black Panther 2.’
‘Black Panther’ was a movie that no one was expecting to be as good as it was and it easily earned its place as one of the best films of the year it was released. Everyone knew that the movie would be one that leaned much more heavily on heritage than any other films, but it does it in a way that shows both points of view of that heritage. Needless to say, the movie ended up becoming one of the more popular Marvel films and we all knew there would be more films to come that are a part of the series. The sequel was announced, like many of their films, a long time ago when they released the names of the next films to appear in the MCU. What we didn’t know at the time is that we would not get to see the original actor play out the role on screen once again after he appeared in ‘Endgame.’
Actor Chadwick Boseman unfortunately passed away not too long ago and that has taken its toll on many different people after it was discovered he was secretly battling cancer. Boseman is remembered for a lot of the roles that he played, but many will often remember him as the titular Black Panther, Prince T’Challa. He played the character with the dignity and grace that he should have been played in and it certainly left its impact that he won’t be able to play the character again. Originally the plan was for the studio to film the upcoming sequel in March 2021, but with Boseman’s passing they have had to delay the filming which will now be filming starting in July 2021 instead. They did this as they now have to recast the main character and it also gives them a better window to start in since the pandemic is delaying so much already.
By George Robbins
The Marvel Cinematic Universe, or MCU, is a very expansive cinematic franchise and it has easily become one of Disney’s most profitable purchases with a large potential for the future. Almost every film in the MCU has been seen in a good light by fans and positively smashed through projected numbers at the box office. It is because of this that the series has been able to release multiple films each year for 12 years and still be able to make more that they know people will end up going to see. This has led to the MCU being established as a very long term franchise that can stay around for many years to come simply due to the amount of source content that is available to them. Being able to make films based on so many heroes and villains from the MCU is something that no one expected and that made it all the more sweet.
The MCU has produced countless films that people have referred to a genre-defining because they most certainly leave a lasting impact. Without the MCU, there was no way of bringing in heroes other than the movies that were being produced here and there in the past. The first ‘Iron Man’ movie completely changed the way that comic book character movies would be done because it gave a solid foundation to a universe many are fans of. Every other film made about a Marvel character up to that point was made independently to try and bank in on characters many people didn’t know much about. Some people may not have even realized that ‘Iron Man’ was not the first film to release which ended up featuring a Marvel character and it only started the hitherto MCU because no other movie had enough of a foundation to do it.
Other Marvel movies that people may have heard about but never thought much about were the ‘Punisher,’ ‘Ghost Rider,’ and ‘Daredevil‘ movies to name just a few. None of those films were ever really able to produce a solid start for a shared universe in the same way that ‘Iron Man’ did because they focused too much on the characters and not how they interacted with a large majority of the world around them. For the most part, the worlds those characters live in can be categorized as separate universes all on their own and this self-containment made it difficult to produce something useful out of the films. Therefore we really do have to be thankful for the release of ‘Iron Man’ for a number of reasons and we really need to appreciate just how well made the movie was. If the film was not as good as it was, we never would have had the MCU begin.
When the MCU began, the question would be just what characters would be able to helm the starting part of the MCU and so they picked characters that could possibly have good chemistry. That doesn’t mean that they all started off being able to work together as ‘The Avengers’ showed. The movie showed that the characters may not have a lot in common and are easy to argue with one another but they all knew what needed to be done and who should be left to what. It is because of this that everything worked out as it did and without the characters that they chose for Phase 1, they never would have been able to succeed the way that they did. Thus, when Phase 2 was announced, no one was sure how that would end up turning out.
While Phase 2 managed to keep things relatively similar to Phase 1 with the characters being shown on screens, it was also the perfect opportunity to expand upon the already growing universe. Hence we were eventually introduced to the ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ even though they would not appear for the rest of the heroes until the end of the saga. It is largely due to this that we would be able to root for these characters in their own environment in a different part of the universe while other characters interacted together on Earth. The ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ were unique because unlike other heroes who had been shown on screen by that point, they were a team comprised of five unique individuals. In fact, it would be easy to compare their first movie to ‘The Avengers’ in their own rite because it was a group with nothing in common coming together for a common purpose.
Despite the vast differences between the characters, they all found a common goal to fight for against the evil Kree Ronan the Accuser who was planning on wiping out entire worlds. Even though they were very wary of one another to begin with and they each wanted to succeed with their own goal, they worked together to succeed. Unlike The Avengers, they were a much more ragtag bunch of misfits that worked on their own and didn’t really have anywhere to go on their own. Thus they ended up becoming dependent on one another to the point where they became an effective team the likes of which can kind of rival the Avengers. It is due to this that people found themselves pleasantly surprised by the outcome of the movie and were looking forward to seeing the characters again.
Eventually we ended up with ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2’ which further increased the size of the group the same way we saw things happen by the end of ‘Age of Ultron.’ This made it even more apparent that they are a force that nobody was anticipating and that they would most certainly be mirroring the Avengers in some capacity. After the end of ‘Endgame,’ people were wondering where the Guardians would be going from that point forward and that answer came in the form of the announcement that they would be in ‘Thor: Love and Thunder.’ After that, they are meant to get their own movie with ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3’ which director James Gunn promised would change the Guardians forever from that point forward. The upcoming Thor film will be starting filming in January of this upcoming year in order to be ready for its 2022 release window.
‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3’ is supposed to release around the same time as the next Thor film because of their presence in the upcoming film, but it is unknown if that will remain the case. James Gunn was temporarily let go as director of the upcoming third entry and as a result, its release date was pushed back in order to deal with that whole situation. Eventually, after the protesting of the cast and crew, Gunn was hired back on as the director of the next film, but it has become more complicated because of the pandemic. They weren’t sure about the new release date to begin with so it wasn’t much of a surprise when they said that it would be releasing much later than originally anticipated. With the release now being much later than anticipated, no one knew when they would end up filming for the movie.
We now know that they intended window for filming is near the end of 2021 to try and make sure every other film being worked on will be finished and they can start. Unfortunately this doesn’t leave us with a definitive release window, but it is a strong possibility that the window will now be some time in 2023. If ‘Love and Thunder’ will be releasing in 2022 with a January 2021 start date for filming, this is a fair assumption to make, but we could still see the movie release in late 2022. Either way, we know that it will be starting filming around the same time of year next year round. That being said, everything is still open to change because of the pandemic and filming schedules and releases definitely belong at the top of the list of things that can be affected in some way.
With every movie in the MCU essentially being pushed back because of the long delayed possible release of ‘Black Widow,’ we will be seeing a lot of changes being made on the fly. There are a few MCU films that will be worked on this upcoming year and it will not be easy for the crews to get them done because we don’t know when this pandemic will end. It is because of this that we will not know until we get closer to the start date for production whether they will actually be able to start on time. Leaving it open as just “the end of 2021” affords a decent window where they can actually start working on the film in earnest. Hopefully things will end up working out and the MCU timeline doesn’t get further pushed back as pretty much everything has been delayed by about a year.
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