Marvel Studios has once again captured headlines lately with their announcement for their upcoming film slate. While the news that a sequel to Ant-Man will be made came as a nice surprise, there are now rumors percolating about what films will get produced. It’s intriguing food for thought starting with the revised schedule for their Phase Three Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) films.
Phase Three
The third phase of the MCU films starts next year on May 6 with the release of the eagerly awaited Captain America: Civil War, which many are calling Avengers 2.5 because it’s stuffed with so many superhero characters. Next in November 4, the Sorcerer Supreme himself Doctor Strange makes his big-screen debut.
From there Marvel Studios amps up their schedule by releasing three films per year starting in 2017 with Guardians of the Galaxy, Volume 2 on May 5, a Spider-Man reboot for July 28 and finally Thor: Ragnarok on November 3. Now the 2018 slate has been changed to accommodate the second Ant-Man film. This means that Black Panther has been moved up to February 6, instead of July 6. That slot now goes to Ant-Man and the Wasp and Avengers: Infinity War, Part I debuts on May 4. Sadly for some fans, the Captain Marvel film originally scheduled for November 12, 2018 will instead come out the following year on March 18. The final two Phase Three films for 2019 will include Avengers: Infinity War, Part II on May 3 and Inhumans on July 12.
More Ants!
Ant-Man turned out to be a bit of a surprised for many who predicted it would be Marvel Studios’ first flop. Instead it made $178 million domestically and even more overseas. While it wasn’t a humongous blockbuster, Ant-Man earned a healthy profit and lots of good will from fans who appreciated its quirky charm.
The fact that there will be a sequel proves that Marvel has a lot of confidence in the property. So what will Ant-Man and the Wasp be about? Here’s a thought, while the first film was basically a heist caper, the sequel could be a rescue story or have a man vs. nature motif. The film could be centered on rescuing the original Wasp who was lost in the quantum realm in a flashback scene in Ant-Man. In fact, some observers of the film picked out a silhouette that resembles the Wasp when the title hero was momentarily trapped in the subatomic universe. Having Ant-Man and the Wasp exploring the quantum realm and finding new worlds will be a fun twist and visually arresting. After that if Marvel Studios decides on another Ant-Man film they can call it Giant-Man as Ant-Man morphs into Giant-Man to follow the comic books in a sense.
Disney had their own version of Comic-Con this past weekend with their D23 Expo held in Anaheim. As can be guessed, the convention was related to all things under the Disney umbrella and what’s coming up. The highlights from D23 Expo dealt with exciting theme park and genre film developments.
Star Wars
Many fans were disappointed that there wasn’t a new trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, but were titillated with the reveal of a Drew Struzan movie poster for the film and an official cast photo for the first Star Wars Anthology film Star Wars: Rogue One. There was also confirmation that Colin Trevorrow, the director of the mammoth hit Jurassic World, will direct Star Wars Episode IX. But the juiciest revelations had to do with the expected and highly anticipated Star Wars Land to be built in Disneyland Park and Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
Ever since Disney bought Lucasfilm and all of its intellectual property from George Lucas a few years ago, fans have impatiently waited for some kind of expansion of Star Wars in the Disney parks beyond Star Tours. Yes, the famous simulator ride had been updated with new, random scenes recently, but aside from Jedi Training Academy and the popular Star Wars Weekends, it seemed as if Disney hadn’t really paid a lot of love to its newest IP acquisition. Meanwhile, its rival Universal Studios Orlando stunned and dazzled Harry Potter fans with its meticulously developed Harry Potter lands in their parks.
That all changed with the announcement. Finally, Disney will have a worthy answer to Harry Potter with an equally revered IP. The Star Wars Land (note: it wasn’t called that in the announcement) will be 14 acres, which will feature a cantina and an immersive Star Wars environment on a new planet similar to what Universal did with Diagon Alley and Hogswart. There will be two new E-ticket rides, one will allow visitors to pilot the Millennium Falcon (most likely some kind of simulator ride), while the other will be based on Star Wars: The Force Awakens. There will be another update to Star Tours that will include a destination from Star Wars: The Force Awakens, an updating of Jedi Training Academy, and an interactive experience called Star Wars Launch Bay. This attraction will be in pavilions in both parks that will feature meet and greets, exhibits and stores, of course. The only drawback to these ambitious plans is that when it came to the time table for all of this the only answer was “coming soon”. Just thinking out loud here, but Disney should take heed on how quickly Universal builds its new attractions. Some of us would like to have something open before this decade ends!
Marvel Cinematic Universe
The two items that are keeping fans salivating had to do with Captain America: Civil War and Doctor Strange. With the latter, Marvel Studios guru Kevin Feige introduced concept art (Doctor Strange begins filming later this fall) that featured a classic look for the sorcerer that includes his red cape and Eye of Agamotto. A trailer for Captain America: Civil War was unveiled, which, of course, no one that didn’t attend D23 Expo could see. There are tons of fake “leaked” trailers out now on YouTube and the smattering of legit ones are taken down too fast to bother linking to, but rest assured as soon as its released to the masses, you can see it here. Based on the descriptions, it sounds like an awesome film and it could be part of the reason why DC/Warner Bros. moved their own superhero civil war flick to another date.
Theme Park News
The other major announcement regarding the Disney theme parks was that Disney’s Hollywood Studios will build a Toy Story Land for the young and young at heart. At 11 acres, this land will have two new rides (a spinner ride and a family coaster), expand Toy Story Mania, which is probably the best news because the wait times for that attraction is beyond ridiculous (and frankly not worth the wait). No time frame was given as to when this will happen. But based on the other big construction needed for Star Wars Land, Disney might as well shut down Disney’s Hollywood Studios until all of this is finished. They may finish ahead of schedule that way, make fans even happier, who will more likely spend money sooner.
Speaking of slow construction, the Avatar Land in Disney’s Animal Kingdom is still chugging along. At least with this expansion we have an actual opening date (2017). For anyone that doesn’t know, there will be two attractions based on Avatar, one is similar to the popular Soarin’ ride and will allow visitors to fly over the skies of Pandora, and the other attraction will be a boat ride.
Here’s some news that will rankle North American Marvel fans, Hong Kong Disneyland will have an Iron Man ride. Similar to Star Tours, the Iron Man Experience will feature the Golden Avenger facing off against the forces of Hydra in Hong Kong. Sounds great for anyone who has an updated passport and the money and time to burn. Look, we understand that there can’t be any Marvel rides in Walt Disney World, but couldn’t they have this slotted for Disneyland? That agreement between Disney and Universal only applies to rides east of the Mississippi.
Upcoming Films
Disney had presentations for its upcoming film slate and the announcements were fast and heavy. New animated films include Gigantic, Moana, Zootopia, live-action versions of Beauty and the Beast, Ghost in the Shell, and The Jungle Book, a remake of Pete’s Dragon, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, and Alice Through The Looking Glass. Part of the presentation focused on Pixar, which showcased The Good Dinosaur and announcements for Cars 3, The Incredibles 2, Finding Dory, Coco (based on the Dia de los Muertos festival), and Toy Story 4. This fourth film in the franchise will be more of a love story and will be about Woody looking for his lost love Bo Peep. The Pixar stuff is exciting except for the third go around with Cars. But marketing types at Disney would disagree with that!
All these announcements and presentations at D23 Expo confirm that Disney isn’t resting on its laurels. The next few years will be exciting times for fans, at least when it comes to films. The theme park components will pay off at a much later date.
First of all, anyone who is reading hasn’t seen Avengers: Age of Ultron should stop reading and see the film because some spoilers from that film will be covered. With that warning out of the way, let’s go over the ramifications of the newly released film.
Just like Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Avengers: Age of Ultron has proven to be a pivotal film in the ever-growing Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). By the film’s end, the status quo of the superhero team has been irrevocably changed symbolized by a new lineup. But more importantly, the seeds for future films in the MCU have been planted or nurtured. Specifically, the next Avengers films, Avengers: Infinity War, Parts I and II, Thor: Ragnarok, Black Panther, and next year’s Captain America: Civil War.
A complaint lodged against Avengers: Age of Ultron is that it spends too much time setting up these future films, but as one of the final films in Phase Two of the MCU it needed to set up Phase Three with its many references and subplots that weren’t intricately involved with the film’s main storyline. In fact, some have griped that more Easter eggs weren’t dropped, namely having cameos by Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, Ant-Man, and Captain Marvel (who was supposed to be briefly introduced but dropped at the last minute). In reality, the film followed the mode of modern comic books that have many references to other titles, especially during big events. But never mind these gripes, looking ahead, one can’t help getting excited by the prospect of what is to come.
Comes The Civil War
After this summer’s Ant-Man, the next major event in the MCU will be the third Captain America film. It’s to be a loose adaptation of the classic comic book mini-series, Civil War, that came out last decade and forever changed the Marvel Universe. In that story, Iron Man and Captain America become bitter enemies with each other and formed factions that battled each other. It all started in the wake of a 9/11-type tragedy that had the public demanding that super-powered beings be held more accountable. This culminated in the passage of the Superhuman Registration Act and with the two heroes taking opposing viewpoints about the law and arms against one another.
Kevin Feige, the president of Marvel Studios has stated that the film won’t be a strict adaptation of the mini-series, “So this will be Civil War based off all the other films you’ve seen up to this point, particularly Winter Soldier and Age ofUltron…Something happens. It has made the governments of the world say ‘we need to have some oversight of these guys.’ It’s not about the secret identity thing, as much as it is about, overall, who reports to who.”
What will exactly happen? We can only speculate at this point as we wonder the following: Will the Winter Soldier be involved in some incident that leads to the Civil War? Or perhaps the film’s villain, Baron Zemo will orchestrate events to bring about chaos and the Civil War. It seems that Captain America: Civil War will be as deep and exciting as its predecessor with mature themes while delivering the big thrills. And it promises to be one of the bigger epics in the MCU.
But wouldn’t it have made more sense to make this an Avengers film instead? To have a war, one needs an army and presumably both camps will have its supporters, hence a large group of characters at least for a solo superhero film. Already, Robert Downey, Jr. will reprise his role as Iron Man/Tony Stark. It’s been announced that the film will introduce Black Panther and Spider-Man (making his MCU debut). Other featured heroes include Black Widow, Hawkeye, Falcon, Scarlet Witch, War Machine, Ant-Man and Vision. The coming film runs the risk of being too bloated with characters and a story that needs more time or additional films to satisfactorily tell its core story. But the film is in good hands with Anthony and Joe Russo directing it. Continue reading →
Fans of the beloved and quirky sci-fi series Farscape should be pleased to know that concerted efforts are underway for a Farscape TV movie.
In this weekend’s WonderCon in Anaheim, series creator Rockne S. O’Bannon confirmed that one of the show’s writers Justin Monjo is working on the script and while the project is still in the preliminary stage, he is optimistic that it will be made.
Supposedly the film will be about D’Argo Crichton, the son of John Crichton (Ben Browder) and Aeryn Sun (Claudia Black), who was introduced as a baby in the mini-series Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars. The younger Crichton has grown up on Earth as part of an effort to hide him because he is exhibiting unique powers that interested Farscape’s baddies. But now at the rebellious age of 19, D’Argo Crichton is ready to rendezvous with his parents who are still traipsing across the cosmos.
What is interesting about the project is that the film will take place after the comic book stories that followed the show, making it one of the few instances where a comic book story line is actively considered as cannon for a film or TV medium.
Now many Farscape fans will take this news with a grain of salt. A few years ago, there was supposed to be a web-based series but that project was ultimately shelved. But now with Farscape recapturing many fans’ imaginations and bringing in new converts, perhaps the time is right to revisit the slightly eccentric astronaut and his bizarre but lovable alien friends. Finding a way to bring back Ka D’Argo (Anthony Simcoe) would be a nice bonus. But until news that production is underway and the original cast has been reunited, it’s best to stay guardedly optimistic.
I miss George Lucas. That is basically my reaction to the recent news and rumors of problems with the upcoming film Star Wars Episode VII. From the writer, Michael Arndt, being replaced with director JJ Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan (the writer of The Empire Strikes Back), to hints of tension between Lucasfilm and Disney about the film’s release date.
This is what I feared when Disney took over the franchise. Star Wars movies usually took three years to make and it was all that George Lucas and his company were focused on. Now it seems like Star Wars is just another piece in Disney’s massive empire. The idea of delaying the film to 2016 may seem like a long time to wait for some, but on the other hand it may not be such a bad idea since it feels like everything is being rushed. Abrams only recently finished Star Trek Into Darkness and now with a new script being written, there will be a limited amount of time to get the whole thing done by 2015 as Disney CEO Bob Iger relishes.
The other idea of having a new Star Wars movie every year makes all of this feel like these films will be churned out of a factory and will inevitably lead to people getting burned out on Star Wars. The anticipation for each new episode was part of the fun during the years between films. But with Disney and its shareholders demanding more profits this will not be allowed. See the glut of Marvel films as a reference. Lucas had his flaws but Star Wars was his life’s work and was solely concerned with it and the rich universe he created. This won’t be duplicated with whoever is running things now.
Getting back to J.J. Abrams, one has to question how committed Abrams is to this opportunity. It has also been rumored that he was reluctant to move to England to film the movie, which if true would be ridiculous. How many directors are out there that would swim to England just to have a chance to direct a Star Wars movie? These type of projects just don’t come around too often. Not to mention the problems several fans had with his Star Trek films that had plot holes all over the place. No doubt caused in part by the scripts. The fact that the Episode VII screenplay is now being rewritten does not inspire confidence except for Kasdan being involved. Having said all of this, I hope that Abrams can pull this out. I think he needs a strong producer to keep him on track and ensure that the problems that occurred in his other films are avoided. His first Star Trek film had nice visuals and good action sequences, so he does have some skill in that regard. He just can’t have free reign to do whatever he pleases, especially on a project of this magnitude. Disney is not going to change directors at this stage of development, so he is it for Star Wars Episode VII. Down the line, I would like to see someone like Alfonso Cuarón take a stab at these films. He has been receiving great reviews for his sci-fi film Gravity. Having that type of vision for a Star Wars film seems like a great opportunity.
Hopefully, Abrams and Kasdan can come up with a quality script and do justice to the Star Wars saga. That is just as long as Abrams doesn’t bring in his buddy writers. Maybe Abrams will ultimately deliver a great Star Wars film, and all this angst we fans are feeling will be for nothing. We’ll just have to hope for the best.
The fact that there will be a sequel proves that Marvel has a lot of confidence in the property. So what will Ant-Man and the Wasp be about? Here’s a thought, while the first film was basically a heist caper, the sequel could be a rescue story or have a man vs. nature motif. The film could be centered on rescuing the original Wasp who was lost in the quantum realm in a flashback scene in Ant-Man. In fact, some observers of the film picked out a silhouette that resembles the Wasp when the title hero was momentarily trapped in the subatomic universe. Having Ant-Man and the Wasp exploring the quantum realm and finding new worlds will be a fun twist and visually arresting. After that if Marvel Studios decides on another Ant-Man film they can call it Giant-Man as Ant-Man morphs into Giant-Man to follow the comic books in a sense.
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