Not to be confused with Smallfoot, there’s another animated Yeti movie that’s about to hit theaters. Yep, leave it to the creative geniuses in Hollywood to put out two animated Yeti moves within a year of one another when I don’t think there were any for…ever? Or at least very few. Anyway, the other film was Dreamworks’ Everest, which has now been given the brand new title of Abominable.
Dreamworks has been working on this one for a couple years now, setting on a September 27th 2019 release date early on in the process. At the time it was to be co-directed by Tim Johnson (Home) and Todd Wilderman from a William Davies script. However it looks like Johnson is out and replaced by Open Season co-director Jill Culton. Johnson has slid over to a producing role.
Agents of SHIELD‘s Chloe Bennett will voice Yi, one of a group of humans who befriend a young Yedi. Here’s the synopsis provided by Variety…
“Abominable” covers a 3,000-mile journey from the streets of Shanghai to the Himalayan snowscapes. When a mischievous group of friends encounter a young Yeti, they embark upon an epic quest to reunite the magical creature with his family at the highest point on Earth.
On the flipside, Smallfoot, which opens this September, centers on a group of Yeti that don’t believe humans exist until they actually encounter one. So I guess you could watch both of these similar movies and get the polar opposite experience. Still, it can’t be a coincidence, right?
While Ryan Reynolds continues to be amazing in Deadpool 2, playing the role he was born to play (No, Hannibal King wasn’t it, but that was close) and leading the sequel to a huge box office debut, the supporting characters were also a highlight. From top to bottom the film was made better by the people in Deadpool’s life, and two of my favorites were Josh Brolin as Cable and Shioli Kutsuna as Yukio, Negasonic Teenage Warhead’s girlfriend an a character we thought was the X-Man known as Surge.
Writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick talked with CBR about those two characters specifically, and they don’t seem to know shit about either one of them. Or at least they don’t seem very familiar with them as comic book characters, and in the case of Cable they’re playing coy for no apparent reason. But let’s start with Yukio, who the writers say isn’t a screen version of Surge at all. Instead, they say she’s the same Yukio we saw in The Wolverine, a film that has (sadly) had its continuity wiped out by X-Men: Days of Future Past…
Reese said, “She’s a super-minor character. The character’s name is actually Yukio, an assassin — but who’s an adult assassin, so we just aged her down. She’s such a minor character, we thought we could pretty much get away with anything.”
Er, minor character? Yukio? Nah, Zeitgeist was a minor character. Yukio is not. Forget The Wolverine, in which she was still a huge character, anyway, in the comics she is actually integral in Logan’s life. She’s not only a longtime friend that has helped Logan take on The Hand numerous times (she’s also very close with Storm), but Yukio was the one who watched over Logan’s adopted daughter since he’s a super negligent parent. Minor, my ass. Yukio was also powerless, while Surge has electric powers similar to those seen in the movie.
As for Cable, Wernick and Reese don’t even seem to know if he’s a mutant or not? Well, why wouldn’t he be? In the comics he has the gift of telepathy and telekinesis, both of which go a long way in keeping the techno-organic virus in his arm from spreading.
“I think it is a little of an open question. We’re going to explore Cable more moving forward, we just didn’t want to overload it,” Reese explains. “We did have versions of the script where he was using telekinesis, and it just became — suddenly he was Force-hurling stuff, it felt like Star Wars. We just decided to dial it back. Let’s keep it about technology. Let’s not overwhelm the audience.”
When asked whether Cable’s ability to call recall his weapons was a sign of his telekinesis, Reese replied with “But even that feels like it’s a technology means, as opposed to maybe he’s using his mind to do it. It’s just a fine line to making him complex and interesting and not overloading an audience with crazy backstory, and the techno-organic virus, which we’ll get into hopefully in the future, and those kinds of things. We’re kind of riding that line.”
“It could be a little overwhelming, I think, for a mainstream audience, so we wanted to keep it simple and relatable,” Wernick concluded. “You’ve got this time traveler from the future who’s trying to save his family, I think was the core of who Cable was in a Deadpool 2 movie. Moving forward in X-Force, my guess is that will be explored further and better, and we’ll get more backstory as to who he is and what his powers are.”
Deadpool 2 makes a couple of jokes about “lazy writing” and I think this shit actually qualifies. How would it be overwhelming to have Cable be a mutant? It’s not overwhelming for literally any other character in the movie. They go a whole scene, and make it an open question, whether Domino’s good luck powers are actually powers or not. But for Cable, who doesn’t even need to use his powers openly, it’s somehow “overwhelming”. Get outta here. His powers are not part of his insanely convoluted backstory.
So, what? Is X-Force going to be about Cable’s mutant powers? That sounds like a very boring story so let’s hope not. But if it isn’t, why tease it? It’s not that interesting, man. To me these explanations are completely unsatisfying and makes me like the film just a tiny bit less. It’s still great, but just shut up now. It’s over, making tons of money. Shut up and soak it in. Hate to think what would happen if they were asked about Shatterstar.
With last week’s love affair between John and Naomi, it’s time to get back to zombies, killing, and continuous human betrayals on Fear The Walking Dead. While last week was a breath of fresh air as 90% of the episode was on John’s property where he found Naomi, gave her a new name, nursed her to health, and she eventually left him (she’s always leaving folks), this week we get back to the core group as they enact their plan of revenge against The Vultures.
The episode begins with one of The Vultures going about his normal scavenging for food and supplies. However, this unlucky fellow runs into John and Morgan. John quickly gets the drop on him and cocks his gun at the fellow. John gives him multiple warnings that he’s got the upper hand. However, the guy had to push his luck and ended up getting shot in the hand as John once again shows he the most badass cop-turned-cowboy of the apocalypse as he blows the man’s finger straight off. John is on a mission to find out the fate of Naomi (since Alicia told him that she’s dead). All he wants is information, but he’s so desperate that he’s willing to kill for it. Morgan talks John off the ledge, and John even gives his guns to Morgan after its deescalated. Morgan and John then warn the guy that Alicia, Luciana, and Strand are looking for them, and they should avoid going about their normal route.
We then go to the “Before” time period where everything a was a little simpler. Naomi is user her nursing skills to help take shrapnel out of Alicia’s arm. The people at the stadium are still very low on supplies as they must figure out a way to stretch a simple can of food amongst the entire group. They will have to once again go out and look for supplies. Even with the truckload of food and supplies that Strand “found” (which is causing friction between him and Cole), the group will have to go out for another run.
Naomi once again tries to leave. When stopped at gunpoint by another person in the community, Naomi says she is going to where she knows the food is. She explains that it’s at an abandoned military base, but it’s dangerous. Madison insists on going with Naomi to get the much-needed supplies. Strand, who knows that Naomi is very much like him, is openly hostile to her, calling her a coward after she tells him and Madison that she really was planning on leaving (with the promise to leave a map for the group). At this point, Strand is just deflecting as he knows he’s just a guilty. Speaking of guilt, he finally fesses up to Madison about how he came across the truck. He was creating his own stash “just in case.” While Madison is disappointed, she’s not upset with him. In fact, towards the end of the episode, she has Alicia do the same thing, “just in case.” The trio stays the night in a motel where they come across two zombies that seemingly have killed each other over a can of beans, obviously foreshadowing that something like that will probably happen in the future.
The next day, Naomi hotwires their car and heads to the site herself. So much for Strand taking her keys. Naomi arrives at the camp where she sees the former habitants who have all turned into zombies. She manages to sneak in through the unlocked back door where she goes into a supply closet. She opens a chest full of guns and finds a set of car keys labeled “JID” on them. As she tries to escape unseen by the zombies, one body catches her attention. It’s most likely he daughter as she has a breakdown. She reveals to Madison and Strand that her daughter caught pneumonia, and she had to leave to get medical supplies (eventually meeting Joe). Her daughter ended up dying and then killing the rest of the camp as a zombie. This has caused Naomi to carry a munch of guilt as a result.
She manages to become trapped by the zombies and escapes by climbing a scaffold, but this makes her trapped as a result. Lucky for her, Madison hasn’t given up on her and she and Strand come in and rescue her. She distracts the zombies while strand makes a tightrope for her to climb across so that the trio can escape. Naomi then comes across to the truck that was loaded with supplies by one of her friends at the camp, who prepped “just in case.” After killing the zombie version of that person, the trio leaves to head back to the stadium. When they arrive back at the stadium, they are given a hero’s welcome as they have all the necessary supplies for them to continue surviving. Having finally earned a victory, The Vultures then leave. Melvin realizes it will take longer than he is willing to wait but warns Madison that their luck will run out eventually.
Back in the “Now,” Alicia, Strand, and Luciana plan their attack on The Vultures with Al filming the whole thing. However, the only car that shows up at their supposed meeting place is Joe and Morgan. They advise them that they warned the Vultures not to come. Morgan who knows about long and drawn out fights, know nothing good will come of this. However, he thought their warning would keep The Vultures away. Instead, it gave them an open invitation for a firefight. Morgan steps in between the two camps as they are prepared to shoot each other to pieces. Just as they are about to attack each other, a car comes from behind… a Land Rover.
Out comes Naomi, who apparently is now with The Vultures! John is excited to the woman he loves and greets her as “Laura” and she’s surprised to see him as well. Alicia becomes enraged and tries to shoot Naomi, but John steps in the way, taking a shot to the chest.
Fear The Walking Dead, you already killed Nick. Don’t kill John!!!
We have to wait two weeks for the next episode, but it looks like we’ll finally have a faceoff between our heroes and The Vultures.
How tough is it to create a cinematic universe as successful as Marvel, Fox, or even Warner Bros.? Just as Universal, who tried to launch their own last year with Dark Universe, which would have put a modern spin on their library of classic movie monsters. And they put a big marketing campaign behind it, a cast of A-list stars who took a cool but weirdly-assembled promo shot, and had box office superstar Tom Cruise in the first movie, a relaunch of The Mummy.
While it made over $400M worldwide, it couldn’t crack $100M domestic and had terrible reviews, hardly the start Universal was looking for. Worse, its director and Dark Universe architect Alex Kurtzman, left his creation behind to work on Star Trek projects, leaving the franchise in flux. The next film was supposed to be Bride of Frankenstein but it was put on hold at the last moment. While Universal wouldn’t tell you the experiment was dead, it was certainly on life support with an incompetent nurse about to trip over the power cord.
Well, Dark Universe may be rising from the grave. Possibly. Artist Robert Varga hit Instagram and excitedly posted about some work he’s doing for Dark Universe that suggests it is very much alive…
“Great meeting this morning with the amazing #DarkUniverse team. Thank you #Universal Exec, Holly Goline and Crash for the hospitality. Looking forward to contributing to the Universal Pictures legacy with my work. Monster things in the works! Stay tuned.”
He could be talking about anything, but thinking logically it could mean concept art or promo materials for an upcoming movie. To be clear, Universal never pulled the plug, it was always just in hiatus until a way forward on Bride of Frankenstein was clear. Perhaps Universal and director Bill Condon have decided on an approach to take? Or maybe this is one of the other movies said to be in the works, like The Invisible Man, Wolfman, etc.?
There’s no way Universal lets an assemblage of stars the level of Cruise, Sofia Boutella, Johnny Depp, Russell Crowe, and Javier Bardem just walk. That would be a monumental waste of time, money, and star power. Plus, despite The Mummy‘s disappointing results I think the world building aspect was quite good, and if Universal plays their cards right they could have a unique cinematic universe of horror movies. It only takes one good movie to set the whole thing right.
Ryan Reynolds is back and suited up for DEADPOOL 2, the anticipated sequel to the highest-grossing R-rated comic book movie ever. But can this one top the bullet-riddled bloodsoaked heights of the original? And will there be a DEADPOOL 3 or just an X-FORCE movie? I’ll be joined by Jeff Lyles of Lyles’ Movie Files to talk about Deadpool’s future on the big screen.
Plus we talk about the season finales of CW’s Arrowverse shows, delve into rumors of a Lando Calrissian spinoff from SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY, a long-rumored Obi-Wan Kenobi flick, and a G.I. Joe spinoff focused on Snake Eyes. All this and more so tune in for another great show!
1. Deadpool 2 (review)- $125M Deadpool 2 cut the legs out of Avengers: Infinity War, knocking it out of the top spot with a $125M debut. That falls just short of the $132M opening of its record-breaking predecessor in 2016, but ahead of the $123M of It as far as R-rated movies go. If you look at it as just a straight up comedy sequel it’s the largest debut ever. While other studios might have been concerned about the proximity to Infinity War, Fox was smart to use Marvel’s smash hit to their own benefit. Having Josh Brolin as the antagonist in both movies gave them perfect material for some hilarious promos, and of course star Ryan Reynolds mocked Marvel as much as possible, to which they happily returned the favor. It all works out for both Fox and Marvel in the end, especially if they wind up under the same Disney umbrella at some point.
2. Avengers: Infinity War– $28.6M/$595M
Marvel’s Infinity War hasn’t been out a month yet, but it’s on the verge of surpassing $600M domestic, which is incredible. It currently sits at $1.813B which is fourth on the all-time list.
3. Book Club (review)- $12.5M
In the counter-programming department, the older-skewing comedy Book Club opened with $12.5M. That’s not bad for the film which features Diane Keaton, Candice Bergen, Jane Fonda, and Mary Steenburgen as women who find new passion in their lives after reading 50 Shades of Grey. I can see this sticking around and playing similar to The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, which appealed to a demo that tends to trickle into theaters over the course of weeks. They probably avoided theaters on Deadpool 2 weekend specifically, and may do the same next week for Solo.
4. Life of the Party– $7.7M/$31M
5. Breaking In– $6.4M/$28.7M
6. Show Dogs– $6M
For the kiddies there was (no, not Deadpool 2 you sickos) Show Dogs, the talking dog comedy led by the voice of Will Arnett. The film opened in the doghouse with just $6M and it’s doubtful any amount of begging will change that for next week.
7. Overboard– $4.7M/$36.9M
8. A Quiet Place– $4M/$176.1M
9. Rampage– $1.5M/$92.4M
10. RBG– $1.2M/$3.8M
American Sniper was an unexpected high point in the careers of both Bradley Cooper and Clint Eastwood. The film earned over $500M, plus multiple Oscar nominations including Best Picture and Best Actor. So it’s not at all surprising the duo are reuniting on a different film, The Mule, which will find Eastwood taking a rare acting role.
Eastwood will direct and star in The Mule, with Cooper co-starring alongside him. This is Eastwood’s first acting gig since 2012’s forgettable Trouble with the Curve, and it’s an interesting role for him to take. He plays Earl Stone, a man in his 80s who is broke, alone, and facing foreclosure of his business. Things begin to turn around when he’s offered a job that simply asks him to drive, but unbeknownst to him he’s become a drug courier for a Mexican cartel, which puts him on the radar of a DEA agent played by Cooper.
Cooper will be pretty busy with his A Star is Born remake, and will make his sophomore directing effort with Steven Spielberg’s Leonard Bernstein biopic. So it could be a little while before The Mule kicks off, and when it does we could be seeing Eastwood in his final screen performance. [Variety]
The Palme d’Or winner at Cannes isn’t something that normally warrants a post here, but when its Hirokazu Koreeda, a director I have lavished more than enough praise on, this moment can’t simply be allowed to pass by. Koreeda’s latest family drama, Shoplifters, won the top prize at Cannes despite some stiff competition from Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman, Burning, and others that made a late surge. Koreeda has been a consistent presence at Cannes, winning the Jury Prize in 2013 for Like Father, Like Son.
The most talked about film at the festival, Lee’s BlacKkKlansman, took the Grand Prize, or the runner-up award. In case you forgot, Lee lost in 1986 with Do the Right Thing, a decision that remains controversial and discussed today. Lee took the loss personally and hasn’t had much regard for Cannes ever since. This won’t make up for what happened 30 years ago but it’s another sign that Lee may be back at the top of his game. And it’s a nice feather in the cap as the film heads towards domestic release.
The full list of winners is below:
Palme d’Or
Shoplifters, dir: Hirokazu Kore-Eda
Grand Prize
Spike Lee, BlacKkKlansman
Jury Prize
Nadine Labaki, Capernaum
Special Palme d’Or
Jean-Luc Godard, Image Book
Best Actor
Marcello Fonte, Dogman
Best Director
Pawel Pawlikowski, Cold War
Best Screenplay
TIE
Alice Rohrwacher, Happy As Lazzaro
Nader Saeivar, 3 Faces
Best Actress
Samal Yeslyamova, My Little One
Caméra d’Or
Girl, dir: Lukas Dhont
Short Film Palme d’Or
All These Creatures, dir: Charles Williams
Special Mention: On The Border, dir: Wei Shujun
Last week’s Gotham
ended with Selina getting shot by Jeremiah. The episode had numerous
nods to Alan Moore’s ‘The Killing Joke’ from the title of the episode, numerous
mentions of ‘one bad day’, the way Selina was shot, Bruce’s torture mirroring
what Gordon went through – it was plastered throughout the episode which I’m
sure many of you noticed and appreciated. It was fantastic to see Gotham’s tribute to this great graphic
novel. This week’s episode is the season finale and picks up right where we
left off.
Gotham Burning story
acr: “The world may seem dark, but there is light.” –
Selina is being raced through the hospital into surgery with
Bruce by her side. Alfred has taken Jeremiah
to the GCPD after the mini beating he gave him and is about to head back to the
hospital to meet Bruce. Jeremiah smugly tells Jim he would like to press
charges against Alfred and that he demands to speak to Bruce. Apparently there
are more bombs that Jeremiah has hidden in the city and the only way he’ll give
up the locations of them is if he can talk to Bruce.
The Mayor of Gotham keeps pushing to lift the evacuation, which
Jim opposes. Eventually the mayor has had enough and makes the call to end the
evacuation himself. One of his staff members notices a man on a nearby rooftop
watching them. This man turns out to be Ra’s and unbeknownst to them, Ra’s
staring at you is never a good sign. Just then, the bomb that is planted
underneath city hall explodes. Jim now knows that Jeremiah is not bluffing and
is trying to gently persuade him into giving up the location of the other
bombs. The interrogation is interrupted by the arrival of the army with the
ranking Major relieving Jim of his command and taking over. Jim
immediately disobeys an order and is put into custody. Riddler intercepts the
soldiers taking Jim and uses tranquilizer darts to knock them out.
While this is happening – Penguin, Butch, and Tabitha have
finally found Hugo Strange who has a plan to return Butch to normal. Tabitha gets
a call that Selina has been shot and races back to Club Siren to make a plan to
kill Jeremiah once and for all. Ra’s had just stopped by Club Siren to
try and convince Barbara to rule the League of Shadows with him. He lets her
know that he wants to destroy the city so his heir can rise from the ashes.
Jim wakes up in Riddler’s lair which sports the iconic giant
question mark we all know and love. Riddler begins torturing Jim, his love for
Lee and jealousy of their past relationship, and pure insanity, driving him. If he can
get Jim out of the way, then he and Lee can be together. Lee walks in on
the torture and lets them both know that she is leaving Gotham. She
would like Riddler to come with her, but not if he kills Jim. This is an offer
that the Riddler can’t refuse and he lets Jim go. Lee meets Jim outside, gives
him car keys, and kisses him goodbye. Something tells me this can’t be the end of
their story.
During the time Jim was preoccupied by Riddler, the Major
brought in Bruce – against his will – to talk to Jeremiah. Jeremiah keeps
alluding to another person during their conversation. Just as Bruce realizes
that Jeremiah is talking about Ra’s, the lights go out and Bruce and Jeremiah
have vanished when they come back on. Not only have Bruce and Jeremiah
disappeared, but all of the bombs that the GCPD had managed to acquire have
disappeared as well. Jim realizes that Gotham’s bridges are the target of the attack and
orders them to be cleared.
Alfred goes to Club Siren to try and find Ra’s. Barbara and Tabitha
are there and they all realize that they can benefit from working together. Penguin comes at the last second and joins the task force. All of them
head to where Bruce is being held captive. A fight ensues and during the melee Barbara manages to get the newly forged dagger into Bruce’s hands and stab Ra’s
with it. As Ra’s is dying, he tells Bruce that he must become Gotham’s dark
knight. Just then the bombs go off and destroy all of the city’s bridges as
everyone looks on in horror.
The bombs going off have a ripple effect for everyone in the
city. Lee realizes that she can’t leave Gotham anymore and must stay and help
the people of the narrows. Riddler is obviously upset at this news and tries to
sneak up on her to literally stab her in the back. Lee is a sly one and manages
to stab him first. Riddler takes the knife from his wound and stabs her as
well. They both share a super awkward kiss and collapse. Crime is overrunning
the city and we see all the major players (Firefly, Penguin, Fries, Scarecrow)
mobilizing to try and gain turf.
Tabitha goes back to see Strange and check on Butch. The
procedure worked and Butch is back to normal. Tabitha and Butch are overwhelmed
that they can live a ‘normal’ life together again. Penguin comes in to check on
Butch and they both thank him profusely for his help. That’s when Penguin
strikes in a moment of utter savagery. He shoots Butch, killing him in front of
Tabitha. Tabitha lunges at Penguin, and he shoots her in the leg immobilizing
her. He lets her know that he never forgot about them killing his mother and he
has been plotting his revenge the whole time. Tabitha killed the person he
loved, so he killed the person she loves. He wants her to live with that pain
until he eventually kills her too. Tabitha goes to Club Siren to let Barbara
know what Penguin did and that’s when Barbara declares a war on men.
Bruce and Alfred go to check on Selina, who is now out of
surgery. Bruce finds out that the bullet severed her spinal cord and that the
damage is most likely permanent. Bruce sends Alfred with Selina out of Gotham
to make sure she is okay while he stays. Bruce has officially taken
responsibility of the city – another huge step in his transformation to the
dark knight. Bruce sees the spotlight on top of the GCPD, the one shining
beacon of light in the dark city. He goes to the rooftop to find Jim, who has
also refused to evacuate the city. It’s the first of many meetings under the
future bat signal on the roof of the GCPD for these two.
My thoughts:
This season of Gotham
has been fantastic. The finale was not my favorite episode of the season, but
it certainly had its moments. Gotham city is being plunged into a deserted
crime island and that will only lead to an even crazier and more violent season
5. Selina’s injury opens up the possibility of her becoming Oracle, but in
Gotham anything can happen and they may find a way for her to fully heal and
somehow obtain more cat-like abilities in the process. Next season seems like
it will have a gangs fighting gangs with Jim, Bruce, and company trying to keep
order feel to it. The flashes of new criminals, like Manbat, at the end of the
episode were pretty exciting and I’m looking forward to seeing the destruction
they help bring to Gotham.
Next season on Gotham:
There are rumors that next season
of Gotham will be the final one –
the show has been hampered by its inability to use certain images and names.
There is only so long that it can go on without actually having Batman in the
show. That being said, I was hoping for more than just one season left, and
nothing has been officially confirmed, other than season 5 getting renewed. We will of course see Bruce continue his path to becoming the Dark Knight, and all the rampant crime throughout the
city will certainly speed up this process.
Hollywood movies are usually a good gauge for social progress. It felt like a controversial political statement, or just a joke, when movies would depict the President as anything other than a white male, and then we had Barack Obama and all of that changed. The Netflix political comedy First Ladies could be offering a glimpse of the future as it will center on the first female POTUS, and she happens to be a married lesbian. *gasp*
Jennifer Aniston will star as the first female President with Tig Notaro as her wife in the White House comedy. Notaro and her One Mississippi co-star (and real-life fiancee) Stephanie Allynne are writing the script. This’ll be a busy one for Notaro as she will also produce.
No word on a director at this point but given Notaro’s close relationship with Netflix I’m surprise she isn’t doing it herself. She will direct Ellen Degeneres’s upcoming comedy special plus her own special Tig Notaro Happy to Be Here which arrives on May 22nd.
“When Beverly and Kasey Nicholson move into the White House, they’ll prove that behind every great woman… is another great woman,” or so goes the film’s official logline. A pretty easy sell, I think, there’s a great deal of producing muscle behind this one. Will Ferrell and Adam McKay will be joining Notaro among the film’s producers.
