Tag: avengers

Marvel’s Hail Mary play: bringing back the Russo Brothers.

It’s not the worst idea in the world, but…

In a shocking turn of events, the Russo Brothers are in talks with Marvel Studios to return to the company and film the next two Avengers movies.

According to a report from THR, Joe and Anthony Russo are in early talks to direct the planned Avengers 5 and the follow-up to that as well. Talks are said to be in the “early stages,” but should the brothers return, they would be making their fifth and sixth films set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

(THR link)

…but I hope they charged all that the traffic will bear. If only because Disney will absolutely blame them if this doesn’t work. I’m not confident that it will work, either. INFINITY WAR and ENDGAME benefited from having an actual plan for developing a complicated story over a decade of standalone and smaller-series films, coupled with characters with proven track records of generating interest, and a fanbase eager for the payoff. That… is not the current state of affairs.

Good luck, guys! You’re gonna need it.

#commissionearned

Movie of the Week: Avengers: Age of Ultron.

Why? Because I want to push back a little. I had a good time at Age of Ultron. Yeah, yeah, it’s not the best MCU movie, but watching the Avengers go around and group content their way through dungeons was fun. Everybody likes the individual-hero movies better, sure, but I’m down with the ensemble flicks, too.

So there.

Oh, boy! It’s news that there’s going to be an Avengers 4 trailer this year!

Can we just think about that for a moment?  Avengers 4, the last time I checked, is coming out in May of 2019.  That’s about six months from now, more or less.  Of course they’re going to put out a trailer in the next two months.  Captain Marvel is coming out in March, and they put out the trailer for that in mid-September.  The odds that Disney would play it weird at this point are just about nil.

Chalk it up to the ravenous content maw that is the modern Internet.  I personally can’t wait for the teaser to the trailer to Avengers 4, myself.  And I absolutely know that that’s going to happen.  I know this because it’s happened in the past, and the studio wants the Avengers 4 hype to glow white-hot for as long as possible.  — And, to be fair: this entire MCU experiment culminates with that movie.  Can it all be pulled together, and leave the audience of hardcore watchers thinking Yeah, that was worth it?  Disney/Marvel won’t know until next year, and the answer very well may shape the very nature of genre films for quite possibly the rest of my life.

So, hey, no pressure.

Disney makes Fox an offer it won’t refuse?

Maybe: “Walt Disney Co. raised its offer for 21st Century Fox Inc.’s entertainment assets to $71.3 billion, outbidding Comcast Corp. in a battle for one of the media industry’s biggest prizes.” Bloomberg also notes that “Disney also plans to take on about $13.8 billion of Fox’s net debt. That would lift the total transaction value above about $85 billion.”  Couple that with the suggestion that Disney may be clearing regulatory hurdles, and it looks like the Disney/Fox merger is a couple of steps closer.

Which leads to the important question: how long will it take for Marvel to create an ends credit scene for the next Avengers flick that looks like this?

Continue reading Disney makes Fox an offer it won’t refuse?

And so begins Infinity War spoilers watch.

Movie’s premiering tonight, embargo drops tomorrow(?), I’m seeing it Friday, and after that spoilers for Avengers: Infinity War will no longer be my active problem. I ain’t going to spoil it, myself, although since it’s a two-parter I assume that people are going to be really pumped up about figuring out How It All Ends.  Entertainingly, I’m actually more excited about Deadpool 2, Ant-Man and the Wasp — and the Aquaman movie, because I heard that the film tested really well with the live audiences.

So no spoilers here for at least the first two weeks. After that, missing the movie is probably more of a life choice for people anyway.

Moe Lane

PS: I’m probably going to go see Solo, sure.  I don’t think that I can avoid it.  Maybe it won’t suck.

Avengers 4 shooting starts…

…and maybe, just maybe, they’re going to be able to pull all of this off: “Avengers 4 is set to be the culmination of every major plot thread over the course of 22 movies in 10 years for the MCU.” As that article notes, almost all of the core actors’ contracts are expiring, and they’re starting to show some signs of being ready to go do other movies. Plus, probably some of ’em are gonna die in Avengers: Infinity War. Not Spider-Man, of course, he’s safe: the studios will be using him for the next stage of the MCU. Why? Because Spider-Man Homecoming will bring in over three hundred million domestically and, more importantly, didn’t suck. So he’ll be the anchor for the next iteration. Continue reading Avengers 4 shooting starts…

Extended ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’ trailer.

This got dropped a couple of days ago, but… it was a rather busy week, no?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fk24PuBUUkQ

It’s kind of annoying that other studios can’t simply admit that they’re better off voluntarily coming into the Marvel Studios fold on this one.  Having the X-Men, Spider-Man, and the Fantastic Four be able to at least show up…  It’s money, people.  Just lying there, in baskets.  Get with the program…

Avengers actors do something classy.

You hear a lot about Hollywood actors being, well, stereotypical Hollywood actors: so it’s nice when you see them act graciously towards a dying fan.  Basically, the fan’s daughter wanted them to offer a little support for him in his last days, and they came through:

More details here. It’s always good to see somebody be decent for the sake of being decent.

Moe Lane