Official: Superhero, Comic Book, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Horror, etc... FILM THREAD

[willy cheesesteak]

'Tomb Raider' Sequel Set For 2021, 'Free Fire' Filmmaker Ben Wheatley To Direct - SlashFilm

MGM has tapped Free Fire director Ben Wheatley as the Tomb Raider sequel director, setting the film starring Alicia Vikander for a March 2021 release.

www.slashfilm.com

Marvel's WHAT IF..? Leaked Images Feature T'Challa As Star-Lord, Zombie Captain America And More

A series of Leaked screenshots from Marvel's animated What If..? Disney+ series have now found their way online, giving us a glimpse of Peggy Carter as Captain Britain, Zombie Cap, Skinny Steve, and more.

www.comicbookmovie.com

 

[willy cheesesteak]

SEPTEMBER 5, 2019 2:34PM PT
Sony Pictures Chief on Spider-Man Split: ‘For the Moment the Door is Closed’
By WILL THORNE

Fans holding out hope that Spider-Man might be returning to the Marvel Cinematic Universe will be disappointed to hear that “for the moment the door is closed,” according to Sony Pictures chairman and CEO Tony Vinciquerra.

Speaking at Variety‘s Entertainment & Technology summit, Vinciquerra cryptically added that “it’s a long life,” implying that perhaps in the distant future the web-slinging hero might swing his way back to the Disney-owned company.

Vinciquerra insisted that there is “no ill will” between Sony and Marvel, after the two failed to reach on agreement on financing terms for upcoming Spider-Man movies, effectively removing Tom Holland’s Spider-Man from the Marvel fold in terms of both future standalone and team-up features. However, he also did acknowledge the fan backlash to the news, saying that it has been “an interesting couple of weeks” for the studio.

Vinciquerra pointed to Marvel boss Kevin Feige being “stretched incredibly thin” with new additions coming to the MCU as one of the reasons behind the breakdown in talks.

“We had a great run with (Feige) on Spider-Man movies,” the Sony chief said. “We tried to see if there’s a way to work it out….the Marvel people are terrific people, we have great respect for them, but on the other hand we have some pretty terrific people of our own. Kevin didn’t do all the work.”

Now that one of its biggest properties is back solely in its hands, Vinciquerra said that Sony plans to launch its own universe using the vast array of Spider-Man characters.

The studio is in production on a second “Venom” film, a picture based on the character Morbius and “five or six” TV series set in the Spider-Man world. The Sony boss bullishly expressed his belief that the character will do “just fine” outside of the MCU, pointing to the success of “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” and the Sony-Amazon series “The Boys” as evidence that Sony is fully capable of hitting the mark on the superhero front.

“Spider-Man was fine before the event movies, did better with the event movies, and now that we have our own universe, he will play off the other characters as well,” Vinciquerra said. “I think we’re pretty capable of doing what we have to do here.”

Many have expressed the hope that Spider-Man might still remain in the MCU, with Marvel stalwart Jon Favreau commenting during his keynote conversation at the Ent & Tech summit that the split is “not for lack of trying.”

“I’ve been talking to everybody about it…I’m cautiously optimistic,” Favreau said of the Spidey situation. “I think it’s a long way away and I think the collaboration has been really strong up to this point so I’m hopeful that there’s away for us all to play together going forward.”

Putting the web-slinger aside, Vinciquerra firmly stated that Sony Studios is “not for sale,” despite regular press coverage to the contrary. The Sony boss also discussed the studio’s decision to stay out of the streaming wars thus far in terms of the general market, a decision which he said allows Sony to be “more transparent” with its creators by not becoming “beholden to any platform.”

Vinciquerra said that when he first came to Sony in 2017, he saw the need to make sweeping changes at the studio to keep up with the rise of streaming.

“With the evolution of the business into the streaming world, both on the theatrical and television side, the opportunities are terrific, but the organizations that were in place at the time were not suited or designed to take advantage of those opportunities,” he said. “We were able to transition in a relatively short period of time to be representative of what the business looks like, and that’s what I enjoy doing, that’s what’s fun about the job.”

As for where in the streaming landscape “Seinfeld,” one of Sony’s most beloved properties, will end up, Vinciquerra was suitably tight-lipped. But when pressed on the time frame in which a deal will be reached, he cryptically stated that it will be struck “before it snows in New York.”



The Russo Brothers on Spider-Man’s Marvel Split and Why Robert Downey Jr. Deserves the Oscar for ‘Endgame’
The Russo brothers sat down with Marlow Stern in Venice to discuss their new film “Mosul,” awards prospects for their record blockbuster “Avengers: Endgame,” and more.

Marlow Stern
Senior Entertainment Editor
Updated 09.05.19 7:12AM ET / Published 09.05.19 5:15AM ET

“Not everything lasts forever!” exclaims Joe Russo.

I’m with the filmmakers Joe and Anthony Russo, aka the Russo Brothers, at the Venice Film Festival where their latest movie, Mosul, is making its world premiere. The film, directed by Matthew Michael Carnahan and produced by the Russos as the debut feature for their studio AGBO, tells the remarkable true story of the Nineveh SWAT Team—an elite group of Iraqi soldiers fighting to reclaim their city from ISIS. It’s akin to a more kinetic Black Hawk Down, minus the ****** politics and Ewan McGregor’s mystifying accent.

As these are the Russo Brothers who rejuvenated the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Captain America: Winter Soldier, introduced Black Panther and Spider-Man to the MCU in Captain America: Civil War, and then closed out Phase Three in crowd-pleasing fashion with Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, our talk eventually drifts to the news that Marvel has cut ties with Sony-owned Spidey, jettisoning the webslinger from any future Marvel films. Given how the Russos—along with Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige—fought tooth and nail to incorporate Tom Holland’s Spider-Man into the MCU, they’re sad to see him go, but enjoyed the ride.

“We were extremely passionate about it. This is something we really wanted to happen, and fought a long time internally at Marvel to make it happen,” Anthony Russo says of bringing Holland’s Spider-Man into the fold.

“It wasn’t easy,” adds Joe Russo. “Kevin [Feige] went through a lot. There were a lot of ups and downs, and he kept walking into our office and we’d go, ‘Look, we’ve got to do it with [Sony],’ and he’d go, ‘OK, I’ll figure it out,’ and walk back into his. He was looking for the way out. He wanted to open that door and have us go, ‘We figured it out! We don’t need Spider-Man!’ because it’s a lot of work to get two major corporations to play nice with each other, and the fact that it happened at all, we should all be dancing and celebrating that we got that little bit of time.”

“I think that’s why Joe and I are not so devastated or surprised that there’s been a falling-out, because it was so hard to make it happen in the first place,” offers Anthony Russo.

Then there’s the matter of Avengers: Endgame and its awards prospects. Since the film received rave reviews, and eclipsed Avatar as the highest-grossing movie ever, it stands to reason that there will be some Oscar chatter surrounding it—even though it is a superhero blockbuster, a genre which, with the exception of Black Panther, hasn’t exactly won over Academy voters.

But the Russos feel that awards pundits and voters often overlook just how difficult it is to make a big studio production like Endgame, employing thousands of workers and incorporating dozens of A-list movie stars in the service of a thrilling, large-scale film.

“It’s certainly as difficult as it gets—without question,” says Joe Russo. “On a scale of 1-10, this is a 12. We’ll say this: there certainly is a disconnect between the Academy and popular audiences. It started about 20 years ago. If you go back and look at the Academy Awards up until that point, they were in sync with popular audiences.”

Much of the blame for this rests on the gross shoulders of Harvey Weinstein, who relentlessly harassed and manipulated Oscar voters into caping for his arthouse films under the Miramax banner—many of which, e.g. Shakespeare in Love, Chicago, and The King’s Speech, weren’t worthy of the Best Picture Oscar.

“That’s what happened,” chimes in Anthony Russo of Weinstein’s influence. “And to its credit, the Academy seems very focused on trying to champion smaller movies, which is awesome, but you don’t want to have that be the only thing they try to do.”

“Because then it just becomes an independent film festival, which we’re all in support of, but if you want to draw an audience, and you have to draw an audience for the Oscars to keep working, then at some point you’ve gotta listen to the audience,” adds Joe Russo. “We don’t make movies for awards. Yes, making this was exceedingly difficult. We made the two most expensive movies ever back-to-back. But I just want to stump for one thing, and that’s Robert Downey.”

Both the Russo Brothers believe that Downey Jr.’s final turn as Tony Stark/Iron Man in Endgame is not only worthy of Academy Award consideration, but that he should win it.

“I don’t know if I have ever seen—in movie history—a global audience react to a performance the way they did to Robert Downey in that movie,” claims Joe Russo. “There were people bawling in movie theaters, hyperventilating. I mean, that is a profound performance, when you can touch audiences all over the world to that degree. We’ve never seen anything like that, and if that doesn’t deserve an Oscar, I don’t know what does.”

Our longer feature with Joe and Anthony Russo—along with fellow producer Mohamed Al Daradji—on Mosul, Trump and more will run Sunday.

 

[SixOhNine]

That's a lot of low key **** talking from Vinciquerra. I'm not sure Sony can back it up. Guess we'll have to wait a couple of years and see how things shake out.

 

[Rumpelstiltskin]

 

[willy cheesesteak]

Marvel's 'Hawkeye' Series Hits Its Target With 'Mad Men' Writer Jonathan Igla - SlashFilm

Marvel has tapped Mad Men scribe Jonathan Igla as the Hawkeye series writer for the Disney+ series starring Jeremy Renner as the bow-wielding superhero.

www.slashfilm.com

 

[Dust For Eyes]

Joker is getting some negative reviews from major outlets

They say the performance and photography are good, but there's not much after that

Now it’s won best film at the Venice Film Festival.

 

[willy cheesesteak]

Sony just did the one thing it couldn’t afford to do: Enrage Spider-Man fans
PUBLISHED SAT, SEP 7 2019 ᛫ 10:00 AM EDT | UPDATED SAT, SEP 7 2019 ᛫ 10:36 AM EDT

Sarah Whitten
@SARAHWHIT10

KEY POINTS

• Fans have taken umbrage with remarks from Sony’s CEO, who took a dig at Marvel head Kevin Feige.
• Feige was not responsible for all of the success of Spider-Man, but he was a pretty big part of it.
• The biggest hurdle Sony faces is earning back fan trust. While audiences embraced the studio’s “Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse” animated feature, Sony’s track record with the webslinger has been bumpy, at best.

Dane Collaro, dressed as Spider-Man, shows his displeasure with the Sony/Disney spat over the web slinger, as he walks through the D23 Expo with his girlfriend Lauren Wood, dressed as Anastasia, in Anaheim, CA, on Friday, Aug 23, 2019.
MediaNews Group/Orange County Register via Getty Images | MediaNews Group | Getty Images

With great power, comes great responsibility. It’s an old Spider-Man adage that Sony should be familiar with by now.

Fans of the webslinger have taken umbrage with recent remarks from the studio’s CEO who, while explaining how capable his production team would be in handling Spider-Man going forward, took a dig at Marvel head Kevin Feige.

“We had a great run with [Feige] on Spider-Man movies,” Tony Vinciquerra, Sony Pictures’ chairman and CEO, said Thursday at Variety’s Entertainment and Technology Summit. “We tried to see if there’s a way to work it out. ... The Marvel people are terrific people, we have great respect for them, but on the other hand, we have some pretty terrific people of our own. Kevin didn’t do all the work.”

He also once again touted that Feige was “stretched incredibly thin” with the new Marvel characters acquired in the Disney-Fox merger earlier this year.

However, fans were quick to poke holes in Vinciquerra’s comments.





Sony did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

“The emotions are running very high, particularly with the fans, and words matter very much,” Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore, said. “Things have been pretty civil and that comment was aimed at their own team. Not sure it was so much a dig, although it comes off that way.”

Of course, in the partnership between Sony and Disney’s Marvel, Feige was not responsible for all of success of Spider-Man, but he was a pretty big part of it. Feige helped lay the groundwork on 23 interconnected feature films and has more than a dozen projects in the works, none of which is tied to Fox’s collection of Marvel characters.

Fans were already upset about the possibility of Spider-Man leaving the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so these additional comments from Sony just added more fuel to the fire. Not to mention, Marvel fans have become fiercely protective of Feige over the last decade, as he has orchestrated the most lucrative and beloved franchises in cinematic history.

“The proper respect must be paid to Kevin Feige,” Dergarabadian said. “What Feige brought to the table, you can’t put a price tag to that. His contribution to Spider-Man was absolutely valuable.”

Tom Holland and an army of Spider-Men invade Hollywood to promote 2017′s ‘Spider-man: Homecoming’ from Columbia Pictures.
Eric Charbonneau

Feige and Disney have remained mum about the divorce with Sony and did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

The Marvel producer did comment during Disney’s D23 Expo, telling Entertainment Weekly:

“I’m feeling about Spider-Man gratitude and joy. We got to make five films within the MCU with Spider-Man: two standalone films and three with the Avengers. It was a dream that I never thought would happen. It was never meant to last forever. We knew there was a finite amount of time that we’d be able to do this, and we told the story we wanted to tell, and I’ll always be thankful for that.”

Earning back trust

The biggest hurdle Sony faces is earning back fan trust. While audiences embraced the studio’s “Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse” animated feature, Sony’s track record with Spider-Man has been bumpy, at best.

The first two installments of the Sam Raimi-directed Spider-Man films in the early ’00s were heralded as films that redefined the superhero genre. However, between the “Spider-Man 3” and the two “Amazing Spider-Man” films, Sony has struggled.

“The Amazing Spider-Man,” released in 2012 earned a 72% Rotten Tomatoes score and its sequel garnered a 52%. While both films tallied more than $700 million in global box office sales, the U.S. performance was lackluster. Each took in over $200 million domestically.

Many said Sony had done a good job with casting, bringing in Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone and Sally Field, but the films didn’t live up to Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy. It also retread through Peter Parker’s origin story, something moviegoers had already seen.

There also was an overabundance of villains. Sony was so eager to show off its IP that it introduced three different, unconnected villains in 2014′s “The Amazing Spider-Man 2.” The plot was messy and unfocused and spent too much time trying to set up future installments without investing in the movie fans were watching.

A still from ‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2’.
Source: Marvel

For comparison, “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” which was released in a joint venture between Disney and Sony in 2017, earned a 92% on Rotten Tomatoes and $880 million globally, nearly $350 million of which came from the U.S.

“Far From Home,” which hit theaters in July, is now Sony’s highest-grossing film of all time, with a box office haul of just over $1.1 billion. Some suggest that Sony wouldn’t have been able to achieve this feat without the help of Marvel.

Marvel skipped Peter’s origin story, only briefly alluding to the death of Uncle Ben, and let a youthful Holland breathe in the role. In “Captain America: Civil War,” Peter is eager, awkward and jovial. That personality carried through to his two solo films as well as his appearances in “Infinity War” and “Endgame.”

This version of Spider-Man has quickly become the favorite interpretation of Peter Parker, which is one of the reasons fans are so disappointed with his departure from the MCU. It’s also led a lot of fans to post on social media that they will boycott future standalone Spider-Man films from Sony. Although, it’s unclear how legitimate those threats are.




Life without Marvel

As Sony moves forward with its own Spider-Man films, and perhaps a handful of Spider-Man TV shows, it will have to somehow deal with the fact that it can no longer be affiliated with Marvel Studios or its plot lines.

Holland is currently contracted for two more standalone Spider-Man movies alongside director Jon Watts.

That means no references to Tony Stark, no relationship between Aunt May and Happy and no Avengers tie-ins. Sony will essentially have to create a completely different Spider-Man and a new Spider-suit.

Fans have bemoaned a possible reboot of the franchise that would retread over old story lines from previous Spider-Man movies. (Yes, the death of Uncle Ben.) Equally worrisome is a complete departure from the Spider-Man they’ve grown to love since he first swung into “Captain America: Civil War.”

“The biggest issue with those two movies is they cannot use any existing MCU story,” Erik Davis, managing editor at Fandango, wrote on Twitter last month. “So, can Peter even reference Tony Stark in the next movie? Can they still set it 5 years post-snap? Can they follow through on that end-credits scene? You have Holland, but what else?”

https://twitter.com/Danimalish/status/1169759651589570561

In the previous standalone features “Spider-Man: Homecoming” and “Spider-Man: Far From Home,” Peter Parker wasn’t actually the sole hero in the movie. In “Homecoming” he was heavily accompanied by Tony Stark and in “Far From Home” much of the plot was pushed along by Nick Fury.

Even the villains were tied more towards the previous Marvel films than from Sony’s lexicon of Spider-Man villains. Both Vulture (Adrian Toomes) and Mysterio (Quentin Beck) were disgruntled with Tony Stark and fueled into a life of crime because of events in other MCU films.

Spider-Man (Tom Holland) meets with Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal) in Sony’s “Spider-Man: Far From Home.”
Sony

Sony could tie Spider-Man into its “Venom” films, but he was so absent from “Venom” that it would likely be awkward to shoehorn Peter Parker into that universe after making such an effort to keep him out of it.

“Maybe the smartest thing for Sony is to just get away from Peter Parker completely,” Shawn Robbins, chief analyst at Boxoffice.com, said.

The character has been associated with three actors in the last 20 years and has become so fundamentally tied to the Marvel Cinematic Universe that looking for other iterations of Spider-Man could be a better option for Sony, Robbins said.

Fans have been clamoring for more content featuring Miles Morales and Spider-Gwen since before “Into the Spider-verse” was released last year.

Still, future films could arrive with a tarnished reaction from Spider-Man fans. While time could be a salve for Sony, comic book fans are not terribly forgiving.

“Even if Sony is completely right and has the best idea for a Spider-Man movie, you don’t say that, it’s not professional,” Robbins said. “There’s no reason to upset your fan base.”

 

[willy cheesesteak]

 

[willy cheesesteak]

Exclusive: Weta Digital's VFX Supervisor Matt Aitken Talks about Visual Effects of Avengers: Endgame

Computer Graphics daily news

www.cgrecord.net

THE FLASH Gets "New 52" Inspired Suit For Season 6; Black Canary's Updated ARROW Costume Revealed

Yes, the chin strap is officially back! The Scarlet Speedster is getting a new costume in season six of The Flash, while we also have a first look at the reborn Black Canary's updated appearance...

www.comicbookmovie.com

DOCTOR STRANGE Writer Debunks Claims That Marvel Doesn't Let Their Directors Direct Action Scenes

After allegations from filmmakers in the press that Marvel doesn't allow directors to direct their own action scenes, a person with insight into the creative process behind Marvel's fight scenes explains.

www.comicbookmovie.com

Reddit - Dive into anything

www.reddit.com

 

[Jr Mouse]

That's a lot of low key **** talking from Vinciquerra. I'm not sure Sony can back it up. Guess we'll have to wait a couple of years and see how things shake out.

If they double down on Spiderverse films they will be just fine.

 

[beargonefishing]

 

[SixOhNine]

If they double down on Spiderverse films they will be just fine.

Really, I'd be just fine if they'd put out something every couple of years from the animated division, and slipped the live action stuff completely, if it was even 75 percent as good as ITSV.

 

[Harold falcon]

That looks terrible.

 

[willy cheesesteak]

'Avengers: Endgame' directors talk 'Mosul' and Sony's 'tragic' Spider-Man mistake

Avengers: Endgame

torontosun.com

James Cameron’s Reaction To ‘Avatar’ Losing Box Office Crown: Relief

James Cameron had the box office crown for 21 years. How did he feel when 'Avengers: Endgame' took the title? Relieved. Here's why...

deadline.com

MoviePass to Shut Down

The curtains have closed on MoviePass, the once influential theater subscription service that offered its users unlimited movies per month for a flat fee of $9.95.

www.hollywoodreporter.com

 

[noob in 89]

Is the X-Men ‘92 series based the self-consciously retro X-Men ‘92 comic, or did it actually run in 1992?