Posted on

“Black Widow” Is A Prequel!

Marvel Studios has officially begun its conquest of the next few years of cinema and culture, with an absolutely outstanding array of new films and TV shows being revealed at San Diego Comic-Con – the entire world responded accordingly, pushing Avengers: Endgame past its box-office competitor Avatar to make it the highest-grossing film of all time, while also managing to dominate social media, with all of Twitter’s top ten trends being Marvel-related, from Kate Bishop to Thor: Love And Thunder. Marvel has also given me quite the headache, giving me endless topics to discuss for the next few days, or possibly weeks – and discuss we shall, starting with the first film to be released next year (but the last film to be announced by Marvel president Kevin Feige at tonight’s showstopper presentation).

Black Widow, officially confirmed for a May 1st, 2020 release date, with David Harbour, Rachel Weisz, Florence Pugh and O.T. Fagbenle set to star alongside Scarlett Johansson’s KGB assassin in what will be a semi-prequel movie set in between the events of Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War, during a time in which Black Widow was a fugitive from her own government: it was not revealed whether or not Captain America, Falcon or Winter Soldier would be in the film. It appears that large parts of the movie will be set in the fabled city of Budapest, though it is still unclear whether the events depicted there are flashbacks to the battle of Budapest referenced by Black Widow and Hawkeye in The Avengers – and Jeremy Renner was not among the cast members revealed for the film, so there’s a possibility Hawkeye isn’t even in it. Footage from the upcoming film was shown to a cheering crowd (who all received Black Widow hats afterward): the brief sizzle-reel showed Black Widow fighting Florence Pugh’s character, confirmed to be Widow’s antihero nemesis and “sister-figure”, Yelena Belova – called it! – before moving on to an intense brawl with the film’s main villain, Taskmaster, seen sporting his iconic shield: still no word on who will be playing that character, but we do know that David Harbour will portray a man named Alexi – in other words, Harbour will not be playing her father, Ivan, as was previously believed by many theorists. I’m still holding onto hope that my theory about Widow’s father being the Eternal, Ivan Druig, is correct. Eternals had its fair share of surprises during their opening presentation, but we’ll talk about that in a separate post. It was also confirmed that Fagbenle’s character “has feelings for” Black Widow, which is interesting. It wasn’t said whether she reciprocated his affections, or not.

Unfortunately, I’ll have to cover the rest of the SDCC reveals tomorrow morning – Black Widow happened to be the least eventful of Marvel’s many panels, so it was easy to talk about all the basics. Stay tuned for discussion of Lady Thor, the Multiverse, Kate Bishop, Eternals casting and more!

Posted on

“The Witcher” First Trailer!

Firstly, let me preface this post by apologizing for my delay: I’m more than an hour late by now, due to not being able to get home fast enough. Destiny has arrived, so have I, and so has the first teaser trailer for The Witcher on Netflix!

My first impressions are a mix of chaos and confusion: I’ve never read the books or played the video games that this series will be based on, so I have almost no idea what the plot is – I am slightly familiar with the main characters like Geralt of Rivia (Henry Cavill), Yennefer (Anya Chalotra) and Ciri (Freya Allen), mostly because I watch a lot of videos by BookTubers who are devoted fans of The Witcher series: specifically Elliot Brooks – go check out her channel, it’s great.

But for right now, until she publishes her own review of the trailer, which will undoubtedly be far more intelligent than mine, I must work from what I know: very little. Okay, let’s dive in. Let’s see, we’ve got Elves, beautiful dark-skinned Elves for a change, and we get a tantalizing glimpse of the paradise they created long ago in this strange world, known as The Continent. These Elves were sorcerers, and taught the arts of chaos magic to humans – only to have the humans rise up against them and massacre them. From what I gather, that is a core theme of the series, both in book format and TV – humans are horrible, despicable creatures, little better than the monsters that populate their myths and dark imaginings. This trailer shows off just how wicked people can be, through some montages of them killing people…wait a second, for a moment there I thought this was Game of Thrones.

Netflix wants this to be Game of Thrones for a new audience dissatisfied with how that show ended, and so they’ve gone to elaborate lengths to make sure this show looks incredible. The production values are insane – beautiful costumes, realistic CGI, and mostly good wigs (there was a lot of worry about that last point, after Henry Cavill had shared a picture of himself wearing one depressingly-cheap set of platinum extensions). The only thing that indicates this show has to work on a somewhat smaller budget than your average movie studio is the general absence of top-notch talent – Cavill is the biggest star by far, and his co-stars are virtually unknown actresses. But thankfully, they do a pretty good job, in this trailer at least, of being mysteriously magical. Magic is one of the trailer’s big attractions, in my opinion: it’s always been an element that fantasy films and TV shows are wary of, because it can easily look and feel slightly ridiculous. Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones both steered clear of depicting much magic onscreen, unless they absolutely had to: magic is something that usually finds its way into more light-hearted fare, such as The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe. But The Witcher doesn’t shy away from fancy lights and displays of sorcery and enchantment: we have glowing trees in the desert, plenty of monsters (including giant spiders, can’t go wrong with those), catastrophic explosions of uncontrollable power, and even people throwing lightning from their hands. When was the last time you saw that in mainstream fantasy? It’s actually been a while since we’ve seen anyone but superheroes and psychic teenagers harness supernatural powers like this. At least, it’s been a while since I’ve seen anything like this.

Overall, it looks really good, definitely something that I’ll want to binge-watch when it arrives on Netflix this…Winter? I don’t know, the trailer doesn’t inform me. Well, whenever it comes out, it looks like it will be really good. Fingers crossed, people!

Trailer Rating: 8/10

Posted on

Taika Waititi To Direct “Thor 4”!

It’s official: Marvel’s Phase 4 line-up will include a fourth chapter in the saga of Norse thunder-god Thor Odinson, continuing on from what was previously believed to be the character’s final solo outing back in 2017, in Thor: Ragnarok. This is huge news – presumably, Marvel wanted to keep it secret for just a few days longer until they could reveal it at San Diego Comic Con, but word has gotten out prematurely.

This is something that a lot of fans have been pushing for, ever since Ragnarok, which proved to be Thor’s most popular film by far, both critically and financially. New Zealand director Taika Waititi brought a fun, zany flair to the character and invigorated what had been one of Marvel’s more stagnant franchises, paving the way for Thor’s hugely expanded role in Avengers: Infinity War, and in Avengers: Endgame. Chris Hemsworth is expected to return to the role, having already admitted that he wants to continue making Thor films, and that he, Waititi, and fellow co-star Tessa Thompson, have all discussed the possibility of a fourth film. Waititi has also been attached to Thor 4, and has in turn delayed production for his live-action Akira anime adaptation for Warner Brothers (poor WB).

As for the plot, that is still completely unknown, but there’s a lot of theories. Thor is expected to at least have a supporting role in the next Guardians of the Galaxy movie, since he joined their team at the end of Avengers: Endgame and was already thinking about renaming the group the “Asgardians of the Galaxy” – something which Guardians director James Gunn has already said won’t be happening: then again, considering that Gunn was recently fired from Disney and is still recovering from his own scandals, he really shouldn’t be calling the shots. But anyway, anything could happen in that film that could affect the plot of a Thor 4.

Another thing to consider is that a fourth film for Thor might not be set in his established homeland of Asgard (since it was destroyed), or even New Asgard, his colony on Earth (since he went off to space). And it also might not include much of the character’s usual supporting cast: aside from Thompson’s character Valkyrie, the rest of them are all kind of…dead. Odin is dead, Loki is dead, the Warriors Three are dead, Heimdall is dead, Lady Sif is just gone, Jane Foster isn’t coming back because Natalie Portman doesn’t want to come back, Hela is supposedly dead (though she’s the Goddess of Death, so I don’t know how that works). This could open the possibility of Thor starting over completely from scratch and gathering an entirely new cast, or it might mean that some of these characters will have to be resurrected. In the case of Loki, that’s not impossible: the trickster god is getting his own Disney Plus series, which suggests that his death in Infinity War was not entirely permanent. As for Hela, she was such a formidable villain, and Cate Blanchett is such an incredible onscreen presence, it seems a waste not to bring her back (especially since we never got to see her as Lady Death, something fans were hoping for before Infinity War came out). Maybe we could even get Jeff Goldblum’s Grandmaster to return for a brief cameo.

So what do you want to see? Are you happy that Waititi is returning to direct the film? How do you think Warner Brothers must feel about this? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!

Posted on

Millie Bobby Brown Joins Marvel’s “The Eternals”!

Millie Bobby Brown, the teenage star of the hit Netflix show Stranger Things is enjoying what is hopefully only the promising beginning of a long career in the entertainment industry: she is still best known for her work on the show, since her film roles have tended to…not go quite as well. This year’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters is a good example – Brown was supposed to be one of the film’s main selling points, but wasn’t enough to garner any critical or, crucially, financial success for the film, which flopped.

Now, as people begin to wonder how long Stranger Things can last (I’m going to guess that, as long as it keeps drawing in record audiences, it will last for a long time), Brown is turning her attention to the movie industry with new fervor. She’s already snatched up the lead role in Enola Holmes, a film about the crime-solving younger sister of famous fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, who will be portrayed by Henry Cavill. And, according to one very peculiar reference in an article by Variety (I’ve noticed that Variety does this a lot), Brown might also be on her way to joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The article in question talks about what Marvel will be showcasing at their eagerly-awaited Hall H presentation for San Diego Comic Con. Obviously, the event will be huge, but the article itself seems, at first glance, to just recap what we already guessed. Marvel president Kevin Feige will be there, and will officially announce projects such as Black Widow, Doctor Strange 2, Black Panther 2, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, and The Eternals – “which has been widely reported to star Angelina Jolie, Kumail Nanjiani and Richard Madden, as well as “Stranger Things” lead Millie Bobby Brown”.

Say what now?

Millie Bobby Brown Joins Marvel's "The Eternals"! 1
goal.com

It’s entirely possible that Variety has confirmation of this casting, and just decided, for whatever reason, to randomly drop it as an aside in an article about Comic Con. As I said, they do that sort of stuff a lot. But it is interesting that they don’t actually reference any sources, saying instead that these are just the cast-members “widely reported to star”. Is that confirmation or what? Considering that Brown is currently at the peak of her popularity, wouldn’t it have made sense to, I don’t know, address this major casting announcement in a separate article?

It doesn’t even seem possible that they would be basing this information off the rumors going around a few months ago that Brown had been cast in The Eternals, rumors which Brown herself strongly denied, claiming she didn’t even know what The Eternals was, and that the rumors were “a waste of time”. But, then again, this is not the first time Brown has been associated with Marvel – back in 2017, she was seen visiting Avengers directors Joe and Anthony Russo while they were filming Infinity War and Endgame: and interestingly, a lot of rumors were going around before Endgame‘s release that two characters from The Eternals would be in in the film, specifically in a post-credits scene. It’s important to note that one of these two characters was rumored to be a teenage female, known as “Piper”.

If Brown has been cast as “Piper”, whoever that may be, she will not be the first Stranger Things star to join the Marvel Cinematic Universe: David Harbour, who play Brown’s character’s father on the show, was cast in the upcoming Black Widow movie, also in an undisclosed role.

So what do you think? Is this a slip-up by Variety, or has Millie Bobby Brown actually been cast in The Eternals? How would you feel about this casting? Leave your thoughts in the comments below, and be patient: all will be revealed at San Diego Comic Con!