Anghus Houvouras with this week’s disappointments from the entertainment world…
“Fox denies rumour that Fantastic Four rights are back at Marvel, still planning sequel”
Oh thank God. I was worried it would wind up in competent hands. I can’t imagine anyone who thinks this is a good idea, except executives at Fox who seem to be the studio most likely to double down on something awful. Speaking of which…
“Len Wiseman developing Die Hard 6 as a reinvention of the series”
This is like asking an arsonist to draw up the blueprints and serve as architect for the building he torched.
“The Hulk confirmed for Thor: Ragnarok”
I’m all for these superhero crossover movies, but can we just end the charade and call them all ‘Avengers’. If 75% the Avengers are in Captain America: Civil War, it’s an Avengers movie. If Thor and Hulk are teaming up, it’s an Avengers movie. We spent much of Phase 2 asking ‘where are the other Avengers?’ when Thor was fighting Maleketh or Iron Man was getting his ass handed to him by Aldrich Killian. Apparently the Phase 3 strategy is ‘Multiple Avengers in every movie’. It’s a great short term solution, but it kind of devalues the idea of one big Avengers team-up every couple of years is every Marvel movie features the Avengers. No more than the painfully average Avengers: Age of Ultron devalued the franchise, I suppose.
“Paramount to remake The Ten Commandments”
It’ll never play. Not with this generation. You can’t expect modern audiences to stay focused on Ten Commandments. They’d be better off with Five. Six at the most. And if any of them is more than 140 characters… forget about it. After the collective shrug that was Exodus: Gods and Kings, is another Moses story a worthwhile investment?
“Kathleen Kennedy says we’ll see a female Star Wars director ‘at some point'”
Not for Episode VII… or Episode VIII… or Episode IX… or Rogue One… or any of the other projects currently in development… but ‘at some point’ it will happen. She’s right, of course. With one Star Wars movie a year, they’re going to run out of male directors eventually. And when they do, they’re sure to make as much as their male counterparts…
“Jennifer Lawrence slams Hollywood pay gap in online essay”
…or maybe not.
See you next week.
Anghus Houvouras is a North Carolina based writer and filmmaker and the co-host of Across the Pondcast. Follow him on Twitter.
