By George Robbins
So this past week has been a pretty interesting one because movie theaters were able to have proper premieres for the first time in months. Although I say “proper” premieres, they aren’t what we were originally used to because there are now new rules in place to keep more people from contracting the virus. Thus, even though theaters can have people come back to them, they still have a huge limit on the number of seats that can be sold for a viewing. On top of this, the total occupancy for buildings in general has been severely limited to make sure people are adhering to the social distancing rules. Despite this, the world saw a pretty good weekend for movies to come back to movie theaters.
One of the biggest releases this past weekend was the international movie premiere for the new Christopher Nolan film, ‘Tenet.’ This movie has actually done so well that it blew expectations out of the water for how much was brought in for the overall box office. That is not even to mention that the film still has its theatrical release domestically coming up this week as well and it is expected to do as well, if not better, than the international release when it releases. Unfortunately, like some parts of the world, not every part of the country is able to open up theaters again as it is up to the individual states whether they can open or not. Therefore, we will have a wait and see just how well it sells and if they will be able to recoup production costs by the end of this weekend.
A film that did actually release domestically this past weekend was the movie ‘The New Mutants.’ The focus of the film being the titular mutants, which many people are unaware of, trying to understand how to properly wield their powers. This film has been one that was years in the making and was originally set to release in April, but due to the pandemic, just released over this previous weekend. It helped out the domestic box office, but the film has been receiving less than stellar reviews which is rough given how long it took for the film to release. It could have been a number of things that went wrong which caused this and now we have the original script to look at to see just what was changed over the years.
Although ‘The New Mutants’ is a standalone film taking place in the X-Men universe, early iterations of the script featured characters like Professor X (James McAvoy) and Storm (Alexandra Shipp). Director Josh Boone and Knate Lee’s original script for the film was very different from the end result as it took place three years after ‘X-Men: Apocalypse.’ It saw Storm losing her powers and eventually coming across a Native American reservation where she meets one of ‘The New Mutants’ main characters, Dani Moonstar. The movie still would have taken place in a creepy facility but it would be a place where kids who couldn’t control their powers were sent with Storm being the overseer. This sounds like it could have been an interesting film if the original movie was not changed.
By George Robbins
Movie theaters have recently started the excruciating process of trying to bring customers back in so that they can once again sell out seats. Since the middle of March, this has been something they have been trying their best to do as they needed some way of making revenue. Theaters kind of need to be open if they are going to make any money because that is just how a business works. As such, they have recently been able to start opening their doors to the public and they have something that they can actually show people. Even if theaters are not opened up everywhere, companies can still start making money by allowing those that are open to sell tickets.
One of the ways, and really the only way, in which they are managing to bring people back to their theaters is by putting out those movies that are available to them. One of the movies that has been released already was the much-awaited movie titled ‘The New Mutants.’ This movie focuses on a group of mutants in the X-Men universe trying to come to terms with their mutant abilities. This past weekend was the much awaited opening weekend for the film and it premiered wherever theaters were opened up. Unfortunately, the well-long awaited film has been getting bad reviews left and right that are calling it a “middle of the road’ hero film, but it did help bring back the box office in the United States a little bit.
The other big film release to have happened recently which has been making headlines is the newest Christopher Nolan film, ‘Tenet.’ This movie is one that has had mystery surrounding it since the moment it was first announced. It was shown to be an espionage film with some kind of element of time travel spliced throughout. This was what drew the most attraction to it and when it released in the international market this past weekend it broke expectations. The movie sold so incredibly well in its opening weekend compared to what people thought it would be like that it is now expected to do extremely well when it hits domestic markets this week.
Although ‘Tenet’ will open in the domestic market this upcoming weekend, it won’t be able to premiere everywhere as not all places have allowed theaters to open. Not only is this an issue for theaters, but also the fact that both ‘New Mutants’ and ‘Tenet’ have already been pirated and put online. Though the quality of the pirated versions is bad, it still hasn’t changed the fact that it is now out and available to the public for free. Theaters are already suffering due to not being open for so long and now they must contend with the fact that people may not want to go and will stay home to watch the movies. Why go to the movies and put yourself and others at risk if you could just stay home and watch the film?
By George Robbins
Now that there is currently a pandemic gripping the world and making things difficult, there are many things that must be done differently. Many events which were supposed to be held this year have essentially been cancelled and moved to either next year or the year after. On the other hand, events that don’t want to have to wait that long have been doing their best to make alternative arrangements. These arrangements mostly involve making things available online and this is how conventions have been doing all of their business as of late. The most recent example of a success convention that was held entirely online was the recent DC FanDome convention.
Unlike the other conventions that were supposed to be held this year, DC FanDome was designed from the beginning as being an entirely online convention. Other conventions that have been held thus far have been adapted to be able to go up online, but they were not really prepared for it and it changed everything. Not everything worked out the way that people wanted and a lot of panels for those conventions ended up dropping out and did not take any part in what was happening. Where DC FanDome differed is that it was an event run by DC which gave us insight into all of their future projects and it did exactly what it set out to do. It made DC fans excited about the upcoming projects they are working on.
So if things worked out for DC with DC FanDome, then isn’t it likely that things could work out with other companies holding conventions as well. This might just end up becoming the new thing where instead of having conventions that combine just about everything into one convention, there will be individual conventions. It makes it easier for companies just to hold a shorter convention showing off their products and upcoming projects than to be a part of a larger convention for almost a week. This puts a spotlight on their projects and makes it much more possible to get the information out there that they want in the public eye. This is why companies like Hasbro are starting to come up with conventions of their own.
The Hasbro conglomerate is a company that mostly specializes in things like toys, board games, and other media assets. These media assets are created based upon the toy lines and board games that the company produces and often times they are panned by critics. The thing is though, that they still make a lot of money off of those assets and so they continue to make them. Now that it is clear that conventions can have a successful online presence, Hasbro is trying to get involved in that market. They have just announced their own convention, PulseCon, which will be taking place on September 25-26, 2020. It will be an event where they simply show off all of their upcoming toys and content. If successful, this might be a new era for conventions as many other companies will probably start following suit.
By George Robbins
As we are all painfully aware of at this point, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, or MCU, is perhaps the most famous franchise ever. It has been one of the longest lasting on-going movie franchises and is still continuing to bring in new fans as time goes on. The last film to be a part of the MCU that has released was ‘Spider-Man: Far From Home’ and it finished off the third phase of the MCU. As of now, the next film that is meant to release is ‘Black Widow’ but due to the pandemic, its release date has been pushed to almost the end of the year. The next entries that are supposed to come into existence after this movie are going to feature a lot of new heroes and it will be an exciting time for the MCU as a whole.
The MCU has had a lot happening to it as of late and no one is quite sure of the future of the MCU given the situation with the pandemic. Adding to this was recent and tragic loss of Chadwick Boseman who played the ‘Black Panther’ character. It isn’t a great time in the world at the moment, but the MCU is still moving forward with whatever they can. Marvel Studios has a pretty good idea about what they will be doing over the next couple of years. The thing is, though, is it something that the fans will be wanting because they have all been pretty vocal over the past year or so about upcoming projects. One of the things that gets mentioned a lot is that people want the X-Men to become an official part of the MCU.
Just recently, we saw the long-awaited release for the movie ‘The New Mutants’ which was meant to serve as a standalone film. The movie was considered a remnant of the X-Men franchise that was being worked on by Fox before they were acquired by Disney last year. After they were acquired the movie continued being worked on, and was set to release back in April but the pandemic pushed the official release until recently. This past weekend was the opening weekend for the film and the movie did not receive good reviews. Although the movie was poorly reviewed, it did help thee box office a little bit by bringing in over $3 million, which is the most theaters have seen since March.
What many MCU fans were hoping was that ‘The New Mutants’ would serve as a gateway movie for the MCU given that Disney owned the property and they could get the X-Men into the franchise that way. Unfortunately, it isn’t just the bad reviews that prevent this from being the case, but also the fact that it was never the plan to begin with. Director Josh Boone says there have been zero talks with Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige about incorporating the mutants into the MCU. This means that, as far as we now know, there are no plans to somehow incorporate the X-Men into the MCU any time soon. It could be many years before this even becomes a remote possibility and even then, there is no guarantee.
By George Robbins
Much of the world is still suffering on a daily basis due to the fact that no one is really able to do much nowadays due to the pandemic. With this in mind, however, there are a lot of things that have been announced that have gotten people very excited recently. Much of the most recent excitement seen as of late is a direct result of the relatively recent DC FanDome convention. This convention was held for its first time ever the weekend prior to this previous one and it was considered a complete success. It was the perfect opportunity for DC fans to find out more about upcoming projects being worked on by the company. It was also the perfect opportunity for fans to tune in and find out some interesting facts about the universe they like to be a part of.
One of the movies that is getting the most attention due to having been shown off during the convention was the upcoming film, ‘The Batman.’ This upcoming film sees the titular hero, being played by Robert Pattinson, as he tries to navigate being in only his second year as the Caped Crusader. This provides a perfect opportunity for film-makers to show just how difficult it was for him in the early years. It is also meant to show people just how different the character was early on and how much he had to change in order to become the hero that people expect him to be. Although we have seen Batman movies before, this one is shaping up to be something different entirely.
Most previous Batman films explored the character after he had already learned to be the hero so many people loved. There were even movies which followed his origins, but they didn’t go into what it was like for the character to learn more about himself during his tenure in the beginning. That rage and naivety that would be displayed in a young Bruce Wayne is what has been advertised for the movie already and it is what most fans are looking forward to seeing in the movie. Batman will not be the only character to be portrayed in their early career as the Penguin, Catwoman, and the Riddler will all be seen in the film as well. Someone else that hasn’t really been mentioned who will also be in the film is Gordon.
Batman fans understand that Gordon plays a huge part in Batman’s career as he is usually his liaison for the police department. This means that we will most definitely be seeing him in the film and he will be portrayed by actor Jeffrey Wright. Wright, like many of the other cast, is excited for the film and has recently said that one of the things that stood out to him about the film is the Batmobile. Wright said recently that, “It was described as this kind of retro, hyper-hemified muscle car, that was just the craziest, coolest thing you’d ever seen. And when I read that I said ‘A ha, yes.’” He became excited about the vehicle just from reading the script so it is no surprise that fans would fall in love with it after seeing it in the trailer. Next year we will even get to see the new iteration of the Batmobile on screen.
By George Robbins
There is an unbelievable number of franchises in the world right now and many of them have been around for a very long time. Even now, years after many of those franchises were originally started, they are still on-going in some shape or form. One of the easiest things for a studio to do nowadays is go back to older intellectual properties and make a movie set in more modern times to get people out to the movies. The movies that they pick to bring out again are more times than not films that have done well in the past and have a dedicated fanbase still. Thus we have movies releasing these days that use movies from back to the 80’s as a reference to go off of.
One of the most famous franchises to exist in general is the ‘Jurassic Park‘ which made its resurgence after well over a decade later. It is now known to the world as the ‘Jurassic World’ franchise in order to re-brand it as something different from the original films. This being said, it leans heavily off of the already existing universe that we know and love which is why the two most recent films have done so well. People have always loved the dinosaurs that have been seen on the big screen and bringing them to a new generation has made Universal a lot of money. Now that we are about to get the third, and what appears to be final, film in the new iteration of the franchise, some things appear to be changing.
I say changing, but really, the movie is going back a bit to the original roots it was founded upon with dinosaurs loose in the wild. ‘Jurassic World’ and its sequel both introduced the idea of hybrid dinosaurs to the series, and while interesting, the movies didn’t feel the same. The thing is, though, that there are not meant to be any more hybrids appearing in the upcoming ‘Jurassic World: Dominion.’ This is going to bring the story back to just the fact that there are now dinosaurs loose once again in the world. What we now know about the film is the fact that the plot will be one that takes place all over the world where characters must deal with the new world they live in.
We have learned a number of details thus far about the upcoming film, but one of the more interesting things was that Sam Neill, Laura Dern, and Jeff Goldblum would be returning to play their original roles. They won’t just be cameos though as, apparently, they will actually have major roles in the film. Beyond just who will appear in the upcoming film, we now know that new dinosaurs will be shown off as well. In order to make the dinos feel more alive this time, they will be using more practical effects and the results speak for themselves. We are looking at a very interesting movie in the near future so all we have to do now is wait until next summer.
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