Sci-Fi Storm

As of Tuesday’s haul at the domestic box office, Captain America: Civil War has reached over $206 million, in just 5 days. This, coupled with Disney’s Jungle Book holding as the #2 movie after four weeks and passing $300 million soon, you would think Disney would be up on the news – but after an earnings report that didn’t meet expectations, owing in large part to the television business, especially ESPN, softening, saw stock its stock prices take a 4% hit, and Disney announcing it would close down its console gaming business, primarily the Disney Infinity line, and taking a $147 million charge to do it.

So how was the movie? [very minor spoilers perhaps ahead] On a rare occasion that I was able to see it opening weekend, I enjoyed it overall. It relied less on the incessant barrage of fighting action that was the hallmark of Avengers: Age of Ultron, and more on the story. However, some of the justification for what was ripping apart the team seemed contrived, and I think a lot of people may generally dislike the idea of friends taking differing sides and fighting each other, and at times be jovial about it. But that joviality also lightens the movie up, which otherwise be a major downer. It does, however, seem to be setting the stage for Infinity War, which is sort of expected…

Browncoats beware…do not read on if you wish to be surprised at Nathan Fillion’s cameo role in the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy 2…but sorry ladies, the character is not “Captain Tightpants”…
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Sorry for the lack of updates lately…we had to attend to a family emergency this past week and returned home late last night, and we have a lot of decompressing to do while attending to an event this week with its own bit of drama attached…but here is a bit of catch up for this past week…

The big news yesterday is that we know who the next companion is on Doctor Who. West End stage actress Pearl Mackie, most recently appearing in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time for the National Theatre, will play a character named Bill in the 10th season, which will not air until 2017. This will be Mackie’s first major role on television.

While we await renewals for a few shows (notably Supergirl), some others did get the nod this week. Grimm will return for a sixth season on NBC, but the network ordered a base of 13 episodes instead of 22 – but that could still increase. NBC has a lot of shows competing for the schedule next Fall, several of which are serials done in 13-episode chunks, and the shorter order will allow them to have more options in scheduling them. If things don’t work out for one of the other shows, Grimm could see the order increase. Also on the renewed list is MTV’s freshman fantasy series Shannara Chronicles, which had so-so live ratings, but picked up heavily in the L+3 and L+7 rating plus lots of social media buzz and digital downloads making it their best new show.

Syfy has given a green light for a pilot for the long-in-development David S. Goyer project Krypton. The series intends to see what life was like on Superman’s home planet years before its destruction, and follow the house of El and in particular Kal-El’s grandfather who seeks to bring hope and equality to a planet in disarray.

And finally moving from the small screen to the large one with a couple of Marvel tidbits…it appears that Iron Man/Tony Stark will be making an appearance in the upcoming Spider-Man: Homecoming film starring Tom Holland as the webslinger in Sony’s reboot of the franchise. Whether this is an attempt to bring Spider-Man closer to the Marvel Cinematic Universe following his upcoming appearance in Captain America: Civil War, or it is just a courtesy crossover for Sony allowing Spidey in the Avengers universe, who knows. But it can only be a plus.

And lastly, Marvel’s Inhumans film, planned for 2019, has been taken off the release slate – at least temporarily. While this could put the production in doubt, it may just be a scheduling matter – the new Indiana Jones movie was scheduled to release just a week later which would have a Disney/Lucasfilm likely overshadowing a Disney/Marvel film. Plans are still in place for the movie, but they just don’t have a release window picked out yet.

Witness the power of the Sorcerer Supreme in the first teaser for Marvel’s Doctor Strange starring Benedict Cumberbatch, in theaters November 4th!

Jessica Henwick, who was Nymeria Sand in the last season of Game of Thrones and Jess Testor in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, will play Colleen Wing, the female lead in the upcoming Marvel series Iron Fist for Netflix.

Colleen Wing is the daughter of a professor of Asian history in New York, but after the death of her mother at a young age is brought up by her maternal grandfather in the mountains of Honshu, Japan, and trained in the ways of the samurai. Her father learns that Iron Fist (Finn Jones, who was also in Game of Thrones as Loras Tyrell) would return from another dimension to exact revenge on his father’s killer, and sends Colleen to meet him. The two them became allies.

Oh my…

Although it looks a bit more like “Avengers Divided” than a Captain America-specific movie, this is going to rock! And there is a little surprise at the end…

Speaking of Netflix and Marvel, the second trailer for Marvel’s Daredevil was released today, and seeing as how I didn’t post the first one, here are both for your viewing enjoyment…

Deadline reports that Game of Thrones actor Finn Jones (Ser Loras Tyrell) has been tapped for the title role in the Netflix series Marvel’s Iron Fist, the fourth piece of the Netflix The Defenders crossover puzzle.

Based on the Marvel comic, Iron Fist is Daniel “Danny” Rand, who’s father as a young boy discovered the mystical city of K’un-L’un where he saved the city’s ruler, and was adopted as his son. Wendell left, but tried to return many years later with his wife an son, but his parents are killed, and he is rescued by archers from K’un-L’un, and becomes an apprentice where he learns mystical martial arts, and eventually becomes the next Iron Fist, part of the long line.

Iron Fist often teamed with Luke Cage, even having their own title, Heroes for Hire.

Deadpool shouldn’t be the successful film it is.

Sure, it’s a superhero movie and that’s all the rage. And it’s a Marvel movie at that. And it exists within the X-Men universe (which one isn’t clear, even to the protagonist) and features a couple of them.

But it’s R-rated, with lots of violence, nudity and sexual references, it parodies the genre and itself, makes fun of the star, breaks the fourth wall, it opened mid-winter, the studio cut the budget, it stars the guy who previously played Green Lantern…the list goes on. At best, it could make a moderately-successful movie off of a “puny” (for superhero movies) budget of $58 million. Some of the most generous estimates saw maybe $80 million.

Then WHY is it approaching $250 million this weekend?!? Because it’s a frakkin’ good movie.

From the get go the film doesn’t take itself too seriously. Instead of naming the actors, director, etc. in the opening credits, it does so descriptively; Ryan Reynolds as “God’s perfect idiot”, Morena Bacarrin as “a hot chick”, the producers as “asshats” and the director as an “overpaid idiot” and the writers as the “true heroes of the movie”. This, while Juice Newton’s “Angel of the Morning” is playing, during a slow motion continue shot of what appears to be massive carnage.

The vulgar references are not only keeping with the character, but help keep the focus of the movie light despite the violence. And even the violence is handled with levity.

Deadpool may have shown the studios the true power of social media as well, as even Reynolds campaigned for and championed this movie heavily, while Fox seemed willing to throw it away. Could it have been done PG-13? Sure. But it probably wouldn’t have been nearly as interesting.

Deadpool is laugh out loud funny – and it takes a lot to make me laugh out loud. Go see it…but please, leave the 10 year olds at home.

Perhaps not very surprising, after the huge success at the box office for Star Wars: The Force Awakens with the December holiday debut (the first time a Star Wars film opened outside the traditional “Summer Blockbuster” period), Disney and Lucasfilm pushed the next film in the saga story to open on December 15th, 2017, rather than the previously scheduled May 26th, 2017 date, presumably to once again capture the rich holiday box office it gained last time. This also provides some more room for Guardians of the Galaxy 2 to shine, which was originally only going to have three weeks before its sibling studio’s Jedi Juggernaut, opening on May 5th.

However, it does put it up directly against Dreamworks’ Ready Player One, and just 10 days later Avatar 2, which could make for a very interesting box office…