Tag: Movies

Ouch. 30-year-old director Josh Trank gets the full studio backs away treatment , including firing him from the second standalone Star Wars movie, after...

Avengers: Age of Ultron had a huge opening weekend domestically—$187.7 million, huge but still only the second biggest opening of all time. Luckily for...

Valiant Comics Entertainment has been teasing a big media announcement for ages and WHOOP there it is: A five picture deal with Sony for films involving Bloodshot and Harbinger and a crossover called Harbinger Wars. And it's being overseen by the guys behind The Fast and the Furious franchise. Zowie! With Marvel and DC locked up at Disney and WB, other studios are looking to get in on the lucrative comic book movie train...and Valiant has got a diesel express straight to the screen. A bunch of top level filmmakers are involved:

• The event was held at the Anaheim Convention Center, and thus far no controversy about moving it to LA or Vegas. • The panel included director JJ Abrams, producer Kathleen Kennedy, and cast members Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Issac, Peter Mayhew, Anthony Daniels, Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill. Money shot above.

A wee bit more gossip has emerged about director Michelle MacLaren departing the Wonder Woman movie, courtesy of Badass Digest:

With movies and TV shows based on comics unavoidable no matter where you turn, I've often wondered why there aren't more indie movies based on indie comics. Part of the reason is that it's just so darned hard to fund any indie movie any more. But it does happen. And if you had reminded me that Officer Downe, the one shot comic by Joe Casey and Chris Burnham was being actually made, with Slipnot's main clown Shawn Crahan directing, I would have said "oh yeah, April Fools." Not because it isn't good source material but it sounds so darned unlikely. <

Are superhero movies the only thing keeping young men going to the movies? Or are they doomed to soon crash and burn out? That and more are covered in this NYT piece on on how female fare is dominating 2015's box office. Insurgent (above), Cinderella and Fifty Shades of Grey have all been hits this year, while male focused films have mostly flopped. (One exception, The Kingsmen based on a you-know-what by Mark Millar, one of Hollywood's most reliable creators.) But other factors are at play including the numbing prevalence of endless special effects and male distraction by video games:

Over the weekend, he had a little spare time, and director James Gunn answered a bunch of question on FB, summarized here. The one...

After using the powers of social media to unlock a new trailer, we see the Avengers in a hopeless battle against Ultron! He's only one robot, what is the problem??? Nice character moments for the Black Widow and Cap, as we see the Avengers facing a host of CGI adversaries, and a ton of CGI building coming crashing down! And I nuanced take on the aqua/orange color scheme of all movies with a more roin's egg blue and light bisque patina.

Another Community director hops over to the big screen

But this year, The Diary of a Teenage girl, based on the hybrid novel/comic by Phoebe Gloeckner, and directed by Marielle Heller is getting very strong reviews. The film stars 22-year-old Bel Powley as Minnie Goetz, a teenage girl whose emerging sexuality finds an outlet in an affair with her mother's boyfriend. (Kristen Wiig and Alexander Skarsgaard play the mother and boyfriend.) Strong reviews have led the way to the film being picked up by Sony Classics already.

Just when you thought you had enough of 2014 year-end lists, it's now 2015 and time to begin everyone's "halfway through the decade" retrospective...