By George Robbins
Not this previous weekend, but the weekend prior, we got a ton of news in regards to all projects being worked on by DC. The event in which we discovered all of this information was known as DC FanDome and it was the first time the event had ever been held. Like any other convention, it was held as a means to bring information to fans who have been wanting information on the DC universe. The convention was made to be the perfect way for fans all over to learn about the upcoming DC projects they know and love because it was an all online event. This was so that people could actually attend the convention because with the pandemic, it was kind of difficult.
Conventions this year have either had to change their format or they have had to cancel altogether because of the pandemic. No large groups are allowed to gather in a public space, and even places that do allow this are heavily restricted on how many people are allowed free reign. It can’t even be called free reign because the social distancing rules must still be followed. This event was unique in that it was online only since it was first announced as a way of making sure people from all over could attend. Thus, there was an incredible amount of success when it came to the convention as a whole. We learned all kinds of new information about the upcoming projects we will be seeing.
Among the projects which were being discussed at length was the upcoming spiritual sequel for ‘Suicide Squad’ aptly named ‘The Suicide Squad.’ This upcoming film is a sequel, in a way, to the first film therefore it is also regarded as ‘Suicide Squad 2’ by the fanbase. At DC FanDome there was a teaser shown for the film that managed to make everyone who saw it excited for the upcoming anti-hero film. What many people may have noticed about James Gunn’s upcoming sequel is that there are a lot of characters people may not know. This is what Gunn wanted in making the upcoming film and it seems that this will work out for the film.
James Gunn is well known for his work in the MCU with ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ which went on to become an incredibly famous group among the community. For a brief period of time, however, he was fired before work on ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3’ could be started. During this time he was recruited by DC to work on ‘The Suicide Squad’ which he became interested in originally because of the character of Amanda Waller. Gunn wanted to use some characters from the first film, but he made the rest of the cast characters that no one would have expected and it is receiving a lot of praise for this already. It turns out that despite using characters many people hadn’t heard of, Gunn was able to use literally any characters he wanted to in order to make the film entertaining. It seems that this may just end up being the case.
By George Robbins
This past weekend was a big weekend for a couple of different reasons, at least when it comes to the movie industry. Ever since March, when the pandemic began, movie theaters have been mostly out of use and it took a couple of months before a couple of them here and there opened again. Now a few months later, we have started seeing theaters open up all over the place and this has resulted in them wanting to bring people in who could help them get some revenue. They have gone all this time without any kind of revenue stream and so they are doing what they can to get things back on track. Unfortunately, despite wanting to open up, some places are still not allowing them to open as they are seen as too big a risk.
Movie theaters are slowly making their reopenings across the world, but there is a risk in reopening such a public place. This is why, despite their readiness to reopen, they haven’t been given the greenlight to do so in every region. In the United States, this is due to some states still not giving theaters the okay to open up. Theater owners haven’t been exactly happy about this, but the argument for why they are still closed makes sense because it states that they are places where many people are sitting in an enclosed space for a lengthy period of time. Even with the restrictions in place for limited capacity, this argument holds true.
Now that some theaters are opened up again, they need movies to show to the public and a couple of studios were more than willing to provide. Among the movies that were handed off to theaters to begin showing on screen was ‘The New Mutants.’ This movie was meant to be the final X-Men film made by Fox that focused on an entirely new cast of characters. Before Disney acquired them, Fox decided that the final cut of the film wasn’t good so they had the whole thing redone. Even after the acquisition, things continued to not do so well as the movie still had troubled production, resulting in it taking until earlier this year before it was ready for release. Unfortunately, this was not meant to last as the pandemic began and the movie’s release was put off even longer.
This past weekend was the opening weekend for the film, and it wasn’t really a great one apparently. The movie was seen as nothing really astounding or out-of-the-ordinary in terms of it doing anything new. This has resulted in the film receiving less than stellar reviews since its release last week, but this was not for naught. Even though it only brought in $3 million domestically this past weekend, this is the most money the Box Office has listed since theaters shut down back in March. Even though it isn’t really a lot, it is much better than what we’ve seen recently. This is a good sign that things will continue to look up as time goes on.
By George Robbins
Movie theaters are doing their best to get things back on track now that they are beginning to open all around the world. Most have been shut down for over 5 months because of the pandemic and thus they have had no way to make any kind of revenue. Movie theaters deal in movie showings and since they aren’t allowed to have a large number of people gather in one place, studios don’t want to take a risk. If a studio lets a movie start being shown and that movie is forced to leave theaters due to closures caused by a spike in cases, then they’ve wasted time and money. Therefore they have all been biding their time until the perfect moment came and they were ready to show their films to the public.
Now that theaters are slowly beginning to reopen with restrictions worldwide, studios are more comfortable with trying to release movies. Due to the aforementioned restrictions, theaters have to follow rules that state that people must remain separated in the theater and that the number of occupants is limited. The way they are limiting it is by percentage of max capacity and if they are larger theaters, no more than 100 people in the building at one time. Despite this, they are doing their best moving forward and get people to go back, but it is really up to the consumer as to whether they want to go. A good incentive to draw people back is a movie that is essentially a complete enigma to the general public.
This weekend marks the opening weekend for the movie ‘Tenet,’ but that is only in the international market. It will still be another week before the movie opens in the domestic market, and even then it will only be in select theaters. This basically just means whatever theaters have been allowed to reopen to the public will be showing the movie. ‘Tenet‘ is a big deal to the public because it is director Christopher Nolan’s newest film that no one knows anything about. Very few details about something sparks curiosity and thus people want to know more by going to see the film which is exactly what Nolan wanted. He wanted his film to be the one that brings people back to theaters and gives them all business.
Nolan’s film is one that takes place in a world of espionage where some agents are doing what they can to prevent World War III from starting. Other than that all we really know is that the movie has some kind of time manipulation seen throughout the film, but exactly what it is, well, that’s the real mystery. Due to people’s thirst for knowledge about this curiosity, tons of people are doing what they can to try and watch the movie. Advanced ticket sales for ‘Tenet’ in the U.S., U.K., and Australia have managed to outpace the sales of Nolan’s two previous films ‘Interstellar’ and ‘Dunkirk.’ This is a good sign for the movie industry, but there really is no way to tell right now just how things will be moving forward, so we just have to wait and see.
By George Robbins
Horror movies are now entirely ingrained as a part of modern society because horror is a very strong genre that has persisted through the years. The genre has a way of drawing attention to itself because it is often full of things that are morbid and violent which draw people in. Humanity is often intrigued and curious about morbid things and this is why horror movies were, and are successful. When horror movies first came out, it was in the form of monster movies and eventually we got a new type of horror movie in the form of slasher films. When slasher movies first released, they were not really well regarded, but a couple of them ended up being iconic through the years.
One of the directors responsible for the creation of the genre and for creating an icon that would then go on to be a huge part of pop-culture is John Carpenter. For those who don’t know why that name is familiar, Carpenter is responsible for the creation of many different films of varying genres over the years but he is remembered by most for his horror films. One of those films that some people may forget that he was the one who made it was ‘The Thing’ which also didn’t do so well upon initial release but eventually it gained a cult following and has retroactively become a beloved horror movie. The work he did on that film would go on to inspire many other forms of media that touch on the horror genre as well. What he is most notable for, however, is the fact that he created the character of Michael Myers.
Michael Myers was the insane slasher villain of the hit horror movie ‘Halloween‘ which made its theatrical premiere in 1978. The movie was one that many people over the years have fallen in love with because it was an example of a well put together horror film that could be something that might happen in real life. Horror movies like that are the ones that grab people’s attention the most because they show us a character that might actually exist in the same circumstances. This is what made the original film so great, and although the franchise was supposed to be an anthology, it would go on to focus solely on Myers and his obsessive killing sprees. The most recent of these films made was one that ignores everything that happened in the other films after the first one and it is simply called ‘Halloween‘ as well.
The newest installment was a huge deal for many fans because it really went back to basics and brought with it everything fans of the original film loved. We now know that the newest iteration is going to be coming out in the near future, but it has been delayed an entire year to try and give it a proper theatrical release. Due to the pandemic, the upcoming ‘Halloween Kills’ will be coming to theaters October 15th 2021. Until then, the creators want to do what they can to hype the movie up and make people excited for when they get to see it next year. Carpenter hadn’t actually seen the film until after it was done because the directing and production was not done by him and instead handed off. He doesn’t seem to mind at all though because he still thinks it looks great that that people should go and watch the film that he is partially responsible for the creation of.
By George Robbins
As we have been made painfully aware over the past few months that movie theaters have had to shut their doors, we now know that we will see movies in theaters again. Now obviously the reason for their closures was due to the coronavirus pandemic and that it is still a very real danger to the general public. This has made it all the more difficult for theaters given the fact that they have had no revenue over the past few months and there are new restrictions in place they must follow. The biggest restriction which is going to cause them trouble is the one that decides how many people can be in a theater at once. This restriction is what sets the bottom line for theaters who have to try and make up for being closed for so long.
So what would be the best way of making back some lost revenue with what is essentially half capacity or less? The answer is simple, at least in theory, and that would be for theaters to have good movies to show to people that will draw them into the theaters. Movie theaters belonging to chains like AMC or Regal have opened up all over the world, where they are allowed, and now they must draw in the crowds. The problem is that very few movies are actually set to premiere after such a long period of delays and a very short prep time. Among the movies afford for people to go and watch now are ‘Tenet’ and ‘New Mutants.’ The latter of the two movies was the last X-Men universe film being made by Fox when they were bought out.
‘New Mutants’ was in development before Fox studios was acquired by Disney early last year and it was in development even longer before hand. The movie is supposed to be a more horror style approach to the X-Men universe which introduces an entirely new group of mutants that have never been adapted to the screen before. This was all made to be the movie’s selling point and after a number of years in development, the movie has finally been given a release in theaters. It is a standalone film that some people were hoping would give the X-Men a way into the MCU some time in the future. The director even believed that there could be sequels for the film, but that seems less likely now.
‘New Mutants‘ is going to be out in any open theaters tomorrow August 28th and some people have even had the chance to see the film by this point. Unfortunately, those early reviews don’t seem all that great considering that the review said that the movie is “generic” and an “eye-rolling case of déjà vu.” Meaning that they believe this movie is just a generic superhero movie that doesn’t do anything special to set itself apart. This makes the likelihood of this being an entry point for the X-Men in the MCU pretty unlikely, but this review should be taken with a grain of salt considering it was just an early review. The only way to find out how true this is when the film has its full theatrical release.
By George Robbins
The DC Extended Universe, otherwise abbreviated as the DCEU, is a shared universe which sees some of DC’s most famous heroes sharing a cinematic universe. This does not mean that every DC film that releases is actually a DCEU film but a majority of them are and this is something that some fans are concerned about. For instance, building a strong universe isn’t so much about just having the characters there, but also about building up the universe. Much of the DCEU thus far has done anything but properly build up the shared universe as we don’t really know how they got to the point they are at without knowing more about the comics. The only films to serve as origin films thus far are ‘Wonder Woman‘ and ‘Man of Steel’ as the other films only show us bits of each character’s background.
Even though they only show a little bit of Batman’s background, they don’t need to show an entire film about his origin again. We have had enough films about Batman to last us awhile and that just wouldn’t contribute to the story. Although ‘Aquaman’ gave us some background on the character, we really don’t know as much about him as some other characters. On top of them, we have The Flash and Cyborg who both didn’t really have any kind of origin movies to go off and were thrown right into the mix just like Aquaman. Although their origins were mentioned, we didn’t really get to see much of a story for those characters. This is what became one of the biggest criticisms for the DCEU, there is no build up.
It is hard not to compare the DCEU to the MCU considering that they were trying to match the MCU’s success. What we ended up with was a movie timeline that just ended up confusing everyone who went to go see the movies. One movie that went the farthest out of the way to confuse people was ‘Suicide Squad.’ The story of the film brings together a bunch of villains into one group who are then forced into working for the government. It is kind of okay to not really have much background on them as we are given background for the more important characters, but the way the film plays out has caused a lot of backlash. According to director David Ayer, the movie was meant to be different but studio interference resulted in it having a story that just seemed “off.”
Despite its shortcomings, ‘Suicide Squad’ was still a very interesting concept that was adapted from the comic series of the same name. This group was put together by government agent Amanda Waller who had those villains put under her thumb by putting bombs on them. Thus we find out just how far her character is willing to go to get the results she wants. Waller actually ended up being one of the reasons why director James Gunn came onto the newest project ‘The Suicide Squad.’ He loved how the character was represented in the comics and the concept she put together and how it worked. He also loved her anti-hero-like nature and felt that her ruthless nature was necessary given the content of the story. It seems like Gunn genuinely cares about doing the source material justice, so here’s to hoping it works out.
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