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Jonah Hill (Maybe) Cast In “The Batman”!

With the focus all on Bruce Wayne’s nemesis Joker for the past few weeks, with critics and early audiences chattering excitedly about controversy and Oscar drama, it’s understandable why plenty of people have probably forgotten about, you know, Bruce Wayne. But yes, indeed, there is a new Batman movie coming out of DC Studios, and the headlines it’s been stirring up today might turn the attention away from Joker for just a little while (not enough to make a dent in that film’s box-office tracking, though).

The Matt Reeves-directed Batman prequel, simply entitled The Batman, already caused quite a rift in the DCEU fandom when it cast Robert Pattinson in the lead role, as the franchise’s newest Dark Knight. But since then, there’s been little to no news about the film, and much of what has been rumored seems “too good to be true”. Daisy Ridley was rumored at one point to be playing Batgirl; then it was Andy Serkis as a possible candidate for The Penguin; Eddie Redmayne lobbying for the role of The Riddler; Vanessa Hudgens wanting to play Catwoman; Josh Gad campaigning for The Penguin; just last night Zendaya made unintentional waves in the Batman fandom by wearing green to the Emmys, which, according to some, was a nod to Poison Ivy; only a few weeks ago it was Rihanna who accidentally got herself labeled as Poison Ivy by over-enthusiastic theorists; so on and so on. The list of A-list actors who want to be in The Batman to accompany Pattinson on his journey back to stardom is incredibly long, but so far none of these are more than rumors or fan-speculation. And as for the actual cast that is being assembled, well, it’s a lot more low-key. Matt Reeves has already made it clear he’s going for a much more grounded approach to the superhero than has been previously attempted, so maybe he just doesn’t want big, flashy superstars distracting from his vision. Whatever his reasoning, he’s just picked out two actors for lead roles – and, well, they might not be Rihanna, but they’re nothing to sneeze at, either.

First, Westworld‘s Jeffrey Wright has apparently been cast to play Commissioner Jim Gordon, Gotham City detective, Batman ally, and, most importantly, the father of Barbara Gordon, a.k.a. Batgirl. Wright’s casting suggests that a woman of color could be up for that coveted role: considering that Batgirl, in the comics, happens to be a white woman with red hair, this will undoubtedly spark more of the usual uproar about how “Hollywood hates redheads”, a statement that is still laughably wrong no matter how many times it gets brought up. However Reeves decides to interpret Barbara, though, the casting of her father is a win for Wright, who’s got a decent, but relatively low-profile resume: he’s definitely looking to change that, scoring roles in the next James Bond film, as well as Marvel’s What If? streaming show.

Then, there’s the big headline: Jonah Hill, a two-time Oscar nominee who has mostly flown under the radar with mainstream audiences, is in early talks to play a villain in The Batman, but neither he nor Warner Brothers can decide which one. Apparently Matt Reeves is intent on nabbing the Moneyball star, and Hill is intent on starring in this movie; it’s just a matter of figuring out which of Gotham’s legendary rogues is best suited for the dramatic actor. According to other trades, the conversation has been narrowed down to a choice between The Penguin and The Riddler, both iconic characters; but “it is unclear if the two sides will be able to find common ground”. I can’t imagine how difficult this choice could possibly be (if you’re going to cast Jonah Hill in your Batman movie, you cast him as The Penguin, there is no room for doubt), but all the reports are unanimous in saying that the delay has nothing to do with dealmaking, but everything to do with pure indecision. Personally, Hill as Penguin and Eddie Redmayne as Riddler sounds like a perfect scenario, and if it were up to me, I wouldn’t be hesitating, but Reeves and Warner Brothers probably know what they’re doing. Emphasis on probably…

The Batman is expected to include a large, possibly unprecedented number of villains, but no names are yet confirmed. So I turn the question to you: who would you like to see Jonah Hill play in the Caped Crusader’s solo movie? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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“Frozen 2” Trailer!

Disney is preparing two last box-office juggernauts for the end of this very profitable year – but in the event that Star Wars is a wildcard disaster, there’s one franchise you can always count on to turn in a profit, whether through ticket sales, accompanying merch, and Olaf waffle-makers: Frozen.

This new trailer finally delivers some of the classic hallmarks of the first film, including, of course, Olaf himself. As someone who intensely dislikes Olaf (when I’m not secretly laughing at all his jokes) it gives me great joy that this trailer ends with a brief scene of him running through a forest being pursued by every imaginable danger. Melt, you over-commercialized snowman! Melt!

There are no songs to be heard, which is something of a disappointment, but in place of that we get lots of action, epic visuals, and an interesting little mystery. Finally, we have some idea of what the film’s plot might be – Queen Elsa is being called to an enchanted forest far away in the north, somewhere her father once visited, before war broke out, and some sort of tidal wave of Autumn leaves drove everyone away. Now, those Autumn leaves sweep through the city of Arendelle, threatening to….um, well, I can’t actually think of why leaves would be so terrifying, but then again, Stephen King has a horror novel about killer grass, so what do I know? Maybe these leaves refuse to be raked. That would be evil.

To understand the calling, Elsa, her sister Anna, along with Kristoff, Olaf, and the reindeer Sven, travel north to the magical woodlands. They immediately run into some high-stakes danger: we see Elsa leaping over ice pillars through what might be a cave; the whole team getting picked up by a tornado; Anna and Kristoff on the run from a stone giant; Elsa surrounded by a raging pink wildfire in the forest. But we also get to see them fighting back – and the visual spectacle is wild. Elsa’s underwater battle with the ghost-horse from the second trailer, for instance, here leads to her literally rising above the waves in what looks like an ice-chariot before looping electric-blue reins around the horse in a stunning display of sparkle and shadow, before riding off across the surface of the ocean.

Oh yeah, and apparently there’s people who want to take over Arendelle for some reason? They might be connected to the attack of the Autumn leaves, so maybe they’re the ones who drove everyone away to begin with – or maybe they want Elsa’s powers for themselves? Do they have anything to do with Elsa’s powers? That bit is still a little unclear. I guess we’ll have to find out when Frozen 2 hits theaters this November.

So what do you think? Are you prepared to go into the unknown with Elsa and Anna, or does all this sword-fighting and epic magic miss the point of Frozen? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Trailer Rating: 8/10

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Disney+ Cancels Muppets Series (And More!)

Amidst all the good news about the upcoming Disney+ streaming platform, and its almost endless catalog of movies from Disney animation, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, and National Geographic, thousands of episodes from Disney Channel TV shows, and its (mostly) new,  original content, there’s still some bad news. And, partially because it’s newsworthy, and partially because I’m still bitter at Disney+ for making me use the + symbol (why am I still mad about that?), we’re going to discuss the not-so-great headlines that last night began plaguing the Mouse House. It’s not just about Muppets, I can assure you.

However, the Muppets are the most important part of the equation, so we’ll talk about them first: Disney has officially chosen to scrap an idea for a Muppets comedy series posed to them by Josh Gad, star of Frozen and its upcoming sequel, Frozen 2. The project, titled Muppets Live Another Day, would have been a sequel to the 1984 hit, The Muppets Take Manhattan, taking place soon after the events of that film. Adam Horowitz and Eddy Kitsis had already been brought onboard to help Gad write and produce the series: apparently, creative differences with Disney executives forced the three showrunners to leave – but now, instead of doing anything with the property, Disney+ has chosen to throw out the idea entirely. We don’t know anything about the disagreements that caused the rift, or whether this is because of Disney’s decision, announced recently at the D23 Expo, to reboot Jim Henson’s The Muppet Show: perhaps two would have been too much Muppet material for the streaming service? Either way, this does make one wonder whether Josh Gad will run into this problem again as he sets out to produce a live-action remake of Disney’s The Hunchback Of Notre-Dame – it’s not easy being Olaf.

At the same time, a smaller bombshell dropped: Disney has scrapped a comedy series titled Four Dads, which would have been their first property focused on LGBTQ characters – while this story hasn’t been making the rounds as much as the Muppets, it’s potentially more devastating. Disney’s commitment to diversity, and especially LGBTQ representation, is still weak: while a Love, Simon spinoff series based on the gay romance film of the same name is coming to Disney+, it is rumored to be significantly different from the film. And as for gay characters in Disney films, they’re few and far between (and when they do show up, they’re stereotypes: next year’s Jungle Cruise will mark the appearance of Disney’s first officially out gay character, portrayed by a straight actor – the character is rumored to be very campy, effeminate, and played for laughs: great work, Disney).

These aren’t the first Disney+ shows to get tossed in the trash. Back in August, it was reported that Book Of Enchantment, a series about the origins of iconic Disney villains such as Ursula, Maleficent, The Beast, and The Wicked Queen, was scrapped because the studio felt it was too dark, even after significant rewrites by Jason Reed, who apparently tried unsuccessfully to insert more humor into the show’s scripts. Personally, that whole idea sounded really cool, so I’m not forgiving Disney for this one – even if they do feel like Disney+ should be squeaky-clean: I mean, seriously, how dark could it have been?

The three cancellations may not have much in common, but it certainly looks like Disney has a very clear picture of what their streaming service should be: whether it’s a good picture is hard to tell. Will we end up missing these shows in the long run? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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“Frozen 2” Official Trailer!

Brisk and tightly-paced, the first Frozen 2 full-length trailer gives us some interesting food for thought, but not a whole lot of answers to our burning questions. We do know, now, that the story will indeed focus on Queen Elsa’s magic, specifically its origins, as many suspected after the first teaser trailer.

So, right upfront we see the same beach-scene from the teaser, with Elsa running across the ocean, apparently trying to escape – but this time we see what happens after she plunges underwater, seemingly crushed by tons of falling ice. Obviously, she doesn’t die (thank you, plot armor!), but she does have a really weird encounter with a blue glowing horse…underwater. The horse seems to scare her, before it disappears in a cloud of bubbles. I don’t know what that’s about.

Vague exposition is then provided by my absolute least-favorite characters from the first Frozen movie: the Trolls. I mean, yeah, it makes sense that they might know what to do, since the chief Troll (his name is Pabbie, apparently, but I refuse to use that ridiculous name) was the one who originally made Elsa and Anna’s lives miserable. The Trolls sound concerned about Elsa’s powers and helpfully remind her that “the past is not what it seems”, while also providing flashbacks of a young Elsa staring out of the palace window, at the Northern Lights in the sky. The Trolls don’t seem to be the only people concerned for some reason, though: we can clearly see a whole bunch of citizens of Arendelle standing around in the background while Pabbie is talking – it seems clear: Elsa must have done something truly horrible with her ice-powers again, and she needs to figure out how to make it stop.

But…we get a glimpse of what she’s up to these days, and honestly it seems pretty innocent. She’s using magic to conjure up beautiful spectral horses (like the one she encountered earlier, perhaps?), giants, and amazing firework-displays – and she looks really happy about it. Who wouldn’t be? It looks pretty harmless. But no, for some reason, Elsa, Anna, Anna’s boyfriend Kristoff, and their snowman Olaf, all have to pack up and head north, on a journey “across the enchanted lands”, according to them Trolls. Like, seriously, Trolls? You couldn’t even give them a map, or decent directions? Go north across the enchanted lands. What does that even mean? And why do they have to go north? Is there something there that will explain Elsa’s powers?

Clearly, something goes wrong with their little road-trip (thanks a lot, Trolls), because we see Anna and Olaf off on their own, boating down a river in a charming little ice-canoe – and plunging over a waterfall. There’s a pink wildfire spreading through an autumnal forest, and interestingly we can people in gray outfits running away from it: do they live here? Then it looks like the fire was caused by Elsa, as it takes the shape of some hopping, glowing, star-burst thing. Kristoff swoops in on a reindeer to save Anna – except…wait a moment. It’s a quick scene, but we clearly see Anna running towards Elsa, who is curled up on the ground, motionless, when Kristoff rides in and grabs Anna. Why would he do that? Is Kristoff evil? What is going on?

Oh I see, we’re going “into the unknown”, now, thanks to Troll-narration.

Then we get more Trolls, and now they’re talking about how they “always feared” that Elsa’s powers were “too much for this world”. Again, though, the scenes used to back up this preposterous claim are happy, beautiful ones of Elsa conjuring giant snowflakes and stuff – though I’m really confused about one particular scene of her skiing up an ice-ramp and then just standing still, staring up at thousands of tiny crystal-diamonds falling from the sky. But on a side-note, the city of Arendelle has never looked as beautiful as it does in this trailer.

The trailer ends on an ominous note. Elsa and Anna walk hand-in-hand into a foggy circle of standing stones: as someone who knows my Celtic history, I can tell you for a fact that nothing good comes of walking into a circle of standing stones. Those are places of sacrifice, typically of the ritualistic variety.

And the last shot is of Elsa cowering behind a tree, as, in the background, something huge rises up from the darkness.

So, yeah. Something has gone wrong in Arendelle. I’m blaming it on the Trolls, personally, but it definitely looks like we’ll see the mysterious origins of Elsa’s power: is she the only one out there like her? If there are others, what can they do? After the first teaser, there was a lot of speculation that Elsa would run into somebody with Autumn-powers, since that trailer featured so much Autumn imagery, like falling leaves and stuff. Not as much of that shows up here, and we don’t even see the strange boy and girl that we glimpsed in the teaser.

So what do you think? What’s going on? How can Elsa fix this situation – and, what exactly is the situation? Too many Trolls, not enough answers.

Trailer Rating: 7/10