Avengers: Endgame
(due out 25 April 2019)
So we got our second Avengers teaser this week, followed by the official poster, which was then re-released hours later.
Can you spot the different between the two posters?
Yeah, it’s real subtle, so let me point it out:
Yep that’s right, after Marvel was praised for its predominantly-black cast in Black Panther and for having its first female superhero in Captain Marvel, the first draft of the Avengers: Endgame poster had left off its black female cast member – the only character to appear on poster without a name credit at the top.
After a fan backlash, Danai Gurira – who plays Okoye, Tchalla’s Wakandan general – was restored. And how did Marvel make up for it when the poster was re-released? By being self-righteous:
Aladdin
(due out 24 May 2019)
This week saw the first full-length trailer for Aladdin, and everyone got to see Blue Will Smith, and realised that if you overlook the fact that Will Smith is just playing himself as Blue Will Smith, things may not be so bleak and it may actually be quite good.
Having overlooked Blue Will Smith, a gripe that people still have is Jafar, who sounds nowhere near as evil as we demand. And also… hot?
Which one are we supposed to be rooting for?
Us
(due out 22 March 2019)
In Jordan Peele’s directorial debut, most of us couldn’t relate to the film because the white people were the villains. As we know, white people are never the most bad (apart from Bernie Madoff), so it was a real stretch not to root for the white people in the film.
Which is why, helpfully, Peele has returned to the status quo for his follow-up horror Us, where the villains are ourselves, but fortunately they’re black people ourselves so it’s all good.
Anyway, the director has explained what message he’s trying to portray (ourselves = bad?) with Us:
“I have a very clear meaning and commentary I’m trying to strike with this film. I’m also trying to design a film that’s very personal for every individual. On the broader strokes of things, this movie is about this country.
“When I decided to write this movie I was stricken by the fact that we’re in a time where we fear The Other — whether it’s the mysterious invader we think is going to come and kill us or take our jobs, or the faction we don’t live near that voted a different way than us.
“We’re all about pointing the finger. I wanted to suggest maybe the monster we really need to look at has our face. Maybe the evil is us.”
So it’s about Trump… it’s always about Trump.
Dark Phoenix
(due out 5 June 2019)
You probably wouldn’t believe it if I told you that X-Men film Dark Phoenix, which was initially set for release in Nov 2018 and pushed back twice, has been beset by production troubles.
The latest to emerge is that Sophie Turner, who plays one of the film’s main leads, was treated poorly on set by her fellow actors because she can’t act very well (as confirmed by her ‘acting’ as Sansa Stark).
She revealed to Glamour Magazine that on Dark Phoenix while she was acting poorly, a male co-star “walked off set” when it was her time to say her lines, resulting in a writer standing in for him:
“I actually have a really big problem with not being able to stand up for myself. Especially if I’m arguing against a man.
“[Dark Phoenix co-star] Jessica Chastain is the one that said it to me, ‘You need to stand up for yourself more!’
“She said, ‘Just go and talk to him, go and say something to him!’ I’m a bit of a shy, pushover person, but I’m getting there, I’m working on it.”
Was it Fassbender? I bet it was Fassbender.
Gambit
(due out NEEEEVVVEEERRRR)
Rupert Wyatt, one time director of the ill-fated Gambit movie, who is most famous for been mistaken by me as the other Rupert director that slept with Kristen Stewart (that one was Rupert Sanders), has spoken about the constantly-rescheduled Gambit film, which had lined up Channing Tatum to play the X-Men hero, and how another film flop had such a knock-on effect with Gambit’s production.
“Fantastic Four came out, did not do very well for Fox, [and] they decided to lower our budget. We were 12 weeks out, we couldn’t recover.
“The script needed a huge amount of rewriting in order to fit that budget, and ultimately the powers that be chose not to go down that road, so the film didn’t happen.
But what would a Rupert Sanders/Wyatt Gambit film have looked like?
“Yeah [a heist film] of a sort. I mean it was a period film.
“It dealt with the 70s up until the present day. It was about kind of mutant gangs and the notion of what it means to belong, tribalism in this bayou-like environment. The swamps of New Orleans.
“So it would’ve been a lot of fun. I know Channing sort of worked on the script to make it into more of a romantic comedy, I think. Which I read and it was great, it was very different to what I was involved in.”
Wyatt/Sanders essentially likened his Gambit to The Godfather, but with mutants. I am certain that he wasn’t overreaching with that comparison.
Godzilla: King Of The Monsters
(due out 31 May 2019)
You know what we haven’t had in a good while? An excessively clickbait title.
So here’s one for Godzilla: King of the Monsters:
How is it different? HOW?!
Allow star Vera Farmiga to explain how it is different:
“The previous Godzilla really focused on the relationship of a father and a son. At the heart of our film is this relationship between a mother and daughter.”
Right. Good. The last one was between a parent and child, and this one is between a parent and child.
Step aside Avatar, this is the one that’s really revolutionising cinema.
This Week’s Bollywood Remake
Lal Singh Chadh, starring Aamir Khan (not the boxer) is set to be a Hindi-language version of Forrest Gump.
It’s going to be really confusing with India invading Vietnam, although I’m sure the choreographed dance number will explain everything.
Legal News of the Week
Offering up a Bandersnatch-style ‘choose your own adventure’, you can either have the Canadian man who flashed employees of a cinema, or the Missouri woman who killed her boyfriend while reacting a movie scene. BOTH NOT BOTH!
Trailer of the Week
The Avengers one (which you can’t watch because of racism and sexism), Seth Rogen and Charlize Theron’s new comedy Long Shot and the Aladdin one.
But the trailer of the week goes to a pair: Good Boys and Booksmart – because they’re pretty much the same film: sweary schoolkids get into hilarious hijinks – but one has boys and one has girls.
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