MORE UNHAPPINESS IN THE LEAGUE
We’ve heard a lot from the cast and crew of Justice League since the film’s release, with a lot of people unhappy with the final theatrical cut that was released with Joss Whedon’s edits. Cinematographer Fabian Wagner has asked for Warner Bros. to release the Zack Snyder cut of the film, and now its lead villain Ciaran Hinds has also voiced his distaste for what was eventually released. Read more here.
In some good news, however, thanks to a fantastic opening in China Justice League is performing well at the global box office. By the close of play this weekend, Justice League grossed $212.1 million domestically, and a further $401.3 million worldwide for a total of $613.4 million. Reports say the film will need to gross $650 million worldwide in order to break even, which could be a big test given Star Wars: The Last Jedi is out next week. Read more here.
Following a tease from San Diego Comic Con earlier this year, Warner Bros. have released the first trailer for Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of Ready Player One. Check out the trailer here.
Back in October, it was reported that Richard Donner, Mel Gibson and Danny Glover were in talks to make another Lethal Weapon movie, and Donner has now confirmed the film saying everyone is on board and the script is moving forward. “It’s a story I came up with with Channing Gibson, the writer who wrote Lethal Weapon 4, and I’m just having to work it out with the studio,” said Donner, who directed all four of the first instalments in the series. “If everybody steps up and we all get together, we’ll make it. Mel and Danny are on board. If it doesn’t work out, at least we tried. But there’s a better chance that you will see the movie.” Read more here.
LEIA’S LAST JEDI SCRIPT RE-WRITES
We’re quickly approaching the release of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and the one-year anniversary of the passing of Carrie Fisher. In a new interview with ComicBook, director Rian Johnson has talked about how Fisher – known for being a huge script doctor in Hollywood – helped shape the script for The Last Jedi. “There are a few scenes that we got together with her and the other actors in the scene and kind of shaped it. I mean, if you have Carrie Fisher standing there with you, you’d be a fool not to use her writing talents. That was probably her main contribution. I’d go to her house, we’d sit on her bed for hours and just go through the script and just have this stream of consciousness, ad lib sessions.There would be a four word line of dialogue that would be the distillation of all of that that would be like, ‘Brilliant!’” Read more here.
It was revealed a couple of months ago that J.J. Abrams would be returning to a galaxy far, far away as the director of Star Wars: Episode IX following the firing of Colin Trevorrow. In a new interview with Rolling Stone, Abrams has revealed that he had no intention of going back to Star Wars following Star Wars: The Force Awakens. ” when the opportunity presented itself to finish a story that we had begun with these new characters, to tell the last chapter of their story, it felt like there was a chance to do it in a way where we could go beyond, and do better than we did in VII. I learned so much in that movie and I saw that this was a chance to sort of realize something that we hadn’t quite achieved – and part of that was it was simply the beginning of these new characters and their story. The opportunity to sort of take what we had learned, to take the feeling of who these characters are and what they are and give them a final chapter that felt in the spirit of what we begun? It was too delicious of an opportunity to pass up.” Read more here.
Anghus Houvouras really wasn’t a fan of the trailer for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and has penned an op-ed explaining why, which you can read here.
Originally published December 11, 2017. Updated April 19, 2018.
