Sci-Fi Storm

Marvel Entertainment released the full trailer for Thor: Ragnarok last night during the Marvel panel, and our friends at Inside The Magic have a nice summary video of the panel…you can see both below!

Freeform picked up a 10-episode straight to series order for Marvel’s New Warriors several months ago, but The Hollywood Reporter today announced that the cast has been set, including the coveted role of Squirrel Girl.

Milana Vayntrub (This Is Us) and Derek Theler (Baby Daddy) will take up the lead roles of Squirrel Girl and Mister Immortal, respectively. Also joining the cast are Jeremy Tardy (War Dogs) as Night Thrasher, Calum Worthy (Austin & Ally) as Speedball, Matthew Moy (2 Broke Girls) as Microbe and Kate Comer (Hello, My Name Is Doris) as Debrii.

The scripted comedy series, a first from Marvel Television, follows six young people with powers living and working together. Not quite super, not yet heroes and with powers and abilities on the opposite end of the spectrum of The Avengers, the New Warriors want to make a difference in the world, even if the world isn’t ready. The series is about the entry into adulthood when you feel like you can do everything and nothing at once – except in this world, bad guys can be as terrifying as bad dates.

Kevin Biegel (Couger Town, Scrubs) is executive producer and showrunner, with Jeph Loeb (head of Marvel Television) and Jim Chory (Heroes, Daredevi) also executive producing.

We thought that is was in the “more likely than not camp, and we were right – ABC has renewed Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. for another season. ABC had previously told producer Jed Whedon to write a “season finale”, not a series finale, so odds were pretty good.

The current season of S.H.I.E.L.D. is reaching its conclusion of the “Agents of Hydra” storyline, where some of the team were entrapped in a virtual reality called the Framework where Hydra was in control and the agents all lead very different lives. The season has been averaging about 4.3 million viewers.

“He’s a friend from work!”

Check out the official teaser for Thor: Ragnarok, out November 3rd, 2017…

Remember that lawsuit filed almost two years ago which claimed that Marvel Studios ripped off elements from a comic called Radix for their modern take on Iron Man? Well, it hasn’t gone away just yet – it’s just transformed.

Early last year the court in Massachusetts denied the case based on jurisdiction, but the plaintiffs, brothers Ben and Ray Lai, owners of Horizon Comics Productions, refiled on April 4th, 2016 in New York. On Monday, U.s District Court Judge J. Paul Oetken issued a ruling on Marvel’s motion to dismiss the suit, dismissing portions of the complaint but allowing others to proceed.

In the ruling, Judge Oetken notes that several parts of the complaint revolve around elements that Marvel called “unprotectable” under copyright, and the court agreed. A “highly mechanized suit of armor” was one, as it was too vague, as was the “three point landing” pose that was common between a poster for Iron Man 3 and some Radix promotional artwork. The pose, frankly, is so utterly common it’s now a cliché and is even referred to as “scènes à faire” or an obligatory scene in the ruling, and despite the plaintiffs assertions that Iron Man originally wore spandex and minimal armor, he wore power armor well before Radix existed, and even when he first debuted in 1963. As those elements are unprotectable, they cannot be considered as part of the test for “substantial similarity” for the case.

Some elements, however, may be protectable in comparing the images, notably things like hairstyles, style of the suit, the use of blue lights in the suit, etc. and Judge Oetken will allow the complaint to proceed “in part”. However, with what seems to remain in the complaint to press on, it still looks like an uphill battle that got even steeper for the plaintiffs.

More action, less of the humor of the first trailer…

Opens July 7th, 2017

It’s pilot happy season, and there have been some casting announcements:

Syfy has added Patrick Fischler (Lost, Once Upon A Time), Zabryna Guevara (Gotham, The Get Down) and Ritchie Coster (The Dark Knight, Blackhat) to the pilot for Happy!, based on the graphic novel from Grant Morrison and Darick Robertson. The show follows Nick Sax (Christopher Meloni, Law & Order: SVU), an intoxicated, corrupt ex-cop turned hit man, who is adrift in a world of casual murder, soulless sex and betrayal. After a hit gone wrong, his inebriated life is forever changed by a tiny, relentlessly positive, imaginary blue winged horse.

Fischler will play Smoothie, a well-dressed mob enforcer and sardonic soulless torturer who claims to take a ‘New Age’ approach to his work.

Guevara is playing Amanda Hansen, a single mom facing every mother’s worst nightmare; the disappearance of her young daughter.

Coster is Mr. Blue/Leonardo Scaramucci, the lead villain whose wealth and status as a legitimate businessman in the wine import trade support an increasingly profitable and highly illegal sideline.

In another Marvel pilot, but for Fox, one of our favorites, Amy Acker, fresh off the final season of Person of Interest, will star in the unnamed X-Men-based show written by Matt Nix (Burn Notice) and directed by Bryan Singer. The show focuses on a family of human parents with mutant children, on the run from a mutant-hostile government. Acker will play mother Kate, who is struggling to deal with her separation from her husband Reed (Stephen Moyer, True Blood) and her increasingly challenging teenage children.
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It’s a gun thing…

Opens May 5th!

“Welcome to the frickin’ Guardians of the Galaxy…”

We get to see a bit more of Mantis, the newest member of the team – along with Drax attempting to help. Sort of.

May 5th!!!!

Just a quick roundup on end-of-2016 events…most notably that it’s been the biggest U.S. box office year for movies ever, taking in $11.13 billion with a few days of strong tracking to go. Leading the pack was Disney/Pixar’s Finding Dory at $486 million, followed Rogue One: A Star Wars Story which had $424M, and Captain America: Civil War at $408M, giving Disney’s divisions the box office trifecta for 2016. Rogue One also looks to keep running into 2017, as it reached it’s mark in only 16 days!

While slower at gaining a box office following, Arrival, which cost much less to make than Rogue One and faced a lot of competition after its release, passed $150 million in the global box office, which is not bad for a “thinker” science fiction movie.

What happens when you mash up a superhero story with Doctor Who on Christmas Day? You get the most watched program in 2016 for BBC America. “The Return of Doctor Mysterio” had 1.7 million viewers in the Live+3 ratings and topped all the key demographics, as well as being the channels most active program on social media. Still not sure when the upcoming season will begin, but we are thinking around April.