WTF? Fridays...9/19/2014

...uh...

W...T...F...?

Plus...

Show me the Millennium Falcon, an X-Wing, a TIE fighter, and Mal's Firefly-class ship - 

'cause I don't see 'em.

Doctor Strange is coming July 8, 2016,

but will it before or after the events from the Netflix series-es?

And Supergirl is coming to a television near you...on CBS!

I'm not against the idea of Supergirl getting a show,

but is it gonna be part of Gotham? Arrow/Flash? Smallville? Constantine?

Oh those wacky folks at DC...

Black Widow The Movie: an update...

So, Kevin Feige has been talking about a stand-alone Black Widow film...

...and now he's put himself back on the fence.

According to Feige, there's so much Black Widow already...

...what with Iron Man 2, Avengers,

Captain America: The Winter Soldier,

Avengers: Age of Ultron,

Avengers 3,

and quite possibly Cap 3,

there might be "too much Widow" for her to have her own movie.

Yeah. That's what I thought too.

Black Widow gets a film...sort of...

First off - this is a fan-based logo. There is no official confirmation of a Black Widow film in production...but there should be!

I'm a little biased though. I'm a firm believer that every comic character from every publishing company is somebody's favorite and should have their own movie...when done right.

Even Ambush Bug...

...Rocket...

...and Sue Storm.

I'd watch them all, and then decide whether or not to own them. Now unfortunately, the argument that "moviegoers are not ready to see a female lead in a comic-based film" has merit:

but these films didn't do very well at the Box Office not because of casting, character or concept, but because they weren't very good. 

Don't believe me?

So I'm all for Black Widow to become an additional chapter in the MMU. 

 Does it suck that it's been this long? Yeah, it does.

Avengers...Cast from the Past

I've been waiting a loooong time for any Avengers-type movie to come out, and being the dork I am, I had in my head what I considered at the time to be the perfect cast.

So using the characters that wound up in the film, I've gone through and made some revisions...

1) Captain America



I'll admit it...Chris Evans is Cap. But fifteen years ago, I had another guy in mind - Brendan Fraser



This was around the time when The Mummy came out, and whenever I read The Adventures of Captain America, I could see Brendan playing the part. He had the seriousness, the awkwardness and acting chops to carry the role.

2) Hawkeye



This is probably the biggest call to come from out of nowhere.

Jeremy Renner did a decent job, and granted - there wasn't as much of the character than the others, but Clint always struck me as a brash punk. To paraphrase Die Hard 2, "he's an a$$hole...but he's our kind of a$$hole." And charming as all hell, with a carny attitude that would cheat when he had to (and he has). So I always pictured Ben Browder.



Yeah, he was in Stargate-SG1, but I remember him from Farscpae. To be honest, I can see Browder in The Avengers as it stands. Again, not to take anything away from Renner's talent, but he was simply miscast. However, if Browder was interested in joining the MMU, he could play someone against Renner's Hawkeye...someone to but heads with...Hmmm...



3) Iron Man



Fifteen years ago, if you told me that RDJ would even have a chance of playing Tony Stark, I'd tell you you were out of your mind.

While Sean Connery was the second choice to play Bomd (Patrick McGoohan turned it down) there's no question - he owned that role. He defined it. And even though other actors have played Bond since (just as others will play Stark down the line, let's be honest) Connery will forever be linked to the character.

The same is true for Robert Downey Jr.



I recently heard that Marvel Studios is giving him $50 million to continue playing Stark. That may be true, it may be rumor, but RDJ deserves every penny. Not only did he define the character, he helped start the MMU.

Fifteen years ago, the only way it might have worked is if Marvel went with an unknown, the way Christopher Reeve was discovered for Superman.

But RDJ is Tony Stark. He is Iron Man. We're done here. Let's move on...

4) Hulk



Bill Bixby left us far too early, and while he would have been too old for Banner fifteen years ago, he left his imprint on the character - the way Lynda Carter did with Wonder Woman.

So who could have taken his own spin on it? Another of RDJ's group of actors...Anthony Michael Hall.



It was The Dead Zone that convinced me. Now - Dead Zone didn't come out until 2002, but I never would have thought this guy could do what he did with a character once played by Christopher Walken.

I also saw him play Bill Gates in Pirates of Silicon Valley, and while that role touched on the nerdy characters he's played in his youth, he showed a level of maturity that comes with age.

His portrayal of Bruce Banner would have been cool. Sort of a blend of Norton and Ruffalo.

5) Thor



Both Thor and Kingpin are very tricky characters to cast. You need the size necessary to convincingly play the part, but also the talent behind (or underneath) the size to successfully portray the character...



Dolph Lundgren.

Hear me out. His Frank Castle wasn't bad at all, and fifteen years ago would have been a good age for him to play Thor. He played He-Man for crying out loud...F**KING HE-MAN!!!


6) Black Widow



Women have a heck of a time getting good roles in Hollywood to begin with. Action roles even more so. Comic-book action roles are almost non-existent, especially serious ones.

In 1997, Batman & Robin came out. At the time, it was the movie to see...until people started seeing it. Uma Thurman and Alicia Silverstone had a chance to show what women can do in this genre, but Joel Schumacher went the campy route instead and we all suffered.

Kill Bill wouldn't come out for another six years, but I'd like to think that if Marvel Studios was around, Uma would have turned down Poison Ivy...and made a fantastic Black Widow.



This movie wouldn't have been be the powerhouse The Avengers is, but it sure would have been something to see...

In Marvel Studios I Trust

Two items today - Avengers and Black Widow...

I've got two things on my mind today, and seeing as how they're connected/related I've decided to talk about both.



First off is the Avengers. I know I've talked about it a lot recently, but it kicks off Summer Movie Season and I plan on discussing movies (both comic-related and just plain cool) for the rest of my life. Plus, I've been waiting for this film for over twenty goddamn years. So deal.

I'll be seeing it at 12:01 am next Friday morning, and had enough time last night to check online for local theatres to see who's having a midnight showing and found three possibilities.

That's right. Three...out of the five, maybe six cinemas within a 45 minute drive of my house...are offering midnight showings. One in IMAX 3D.

HOLY F**KING S#!T!!!


Still haven't made up my mind yet, but...wow.
___________________________________________________________________________



Second is Black Widow. Apparently, she isn't going to be in Iron Man 3.

I'm okay with this, for two reasons:

1) While the film character has had supporting roles up to this point, they've been significant supporting roles. Her presence had purpose. Putting her into IM3 "just because" would be stupid.

2) She needs her own goddamn film. Scarlett Johansson is a fantastic actress for this genre. She gets it. I never would have thought of her for either this genre or this role, but she's brought her A-game and owns it.

The tragedy is that it will never happen.

Marvel Studios is too young in the business to say "screw it" and make a movie with a strong female lead, and this genre of movies is way too fickle to know for sure it would work. If you don't believe me, watch Elektra which starred Jennifer Garner - Johansson's predecessor in the realm of comic-book films that also "got it" and owned her respective character.



But comic-book movies aren't the only genre with this problem. Westerns' biggest box-office films with female leads - to my knowledge, and please correct me if I'm wrong - are The Quick and the Dead (which also starred Leo DiCaprio, Russell Crowe, Gene Hackman and Lance Henrickson) and Bad Girls (which had not one but four female leads).

                                                   


As for sci-fi, let's talk about Alien for a minute. Yes - Sigourney Weaver did a fantastic job and became a star because of it and rightly so. Yes - Ripley was a fantastic character that brought women a few steps closer to equality in terms of strong female roles to portray. Yes - the argument can be made that Weaver carried the movie, and that Alien became the huge hit it was because of her...



...but she was part of an ensemble cast for over half of the film. Plus, the alien itself was a big part of the audience draw. And every sequel since has had her as part of yet another group of humans tracking down/surviving against alien(s).

Can anyone think of a successful sci-fi film with a single female lead? Because I can't.

And for the record - this sucks.

So back to Johansson's Black Widow...

Should she have a solo Black Widow film? Absolutely.
Will it happen? Not in a million years.

However, I see no reason why she can't be in a film where...

1) she teams up with another character like Hawkeye or Cap.

2) she teams up with a new character like Carol Danvers or Jessica Drew.

3) she gets her own movie with a plot similar to La Femme Nikita, where she's taken from her home and trained by someone as part of a team and then captured and re-trained by S.H.I.E.L.D..

4) she teams up with Coulson - 'cause that would be awesome.

So the bottom line here is that with such a great actress in such a great role in their possession, Marvel Studios would be stupid not to do something more with Black Widow. I'm sure they know it and will come up with a solution because...

In Marvel Studios I Trust