Fanboys Anonymous

Welcome to another edition of WEEK IN GEEK here at Fanboys Anonymous—a rundown of some of the events, news and stories that went down over the past few days in the geek culture spectrum.


Here are some of the topics I felt like voicing my opinions about:

Bond 25 Cast Reveal

Returning Cast = Daniel Craig, of course. Ralph Fiennes is still M, so that's good. Ben Whishaw is still Q, awesome. Naomie Harris is still Moneypenny, fantastic. Rory Kinnear is still Tanner, thumbs up. Jeffrey Wright is returning as Felix Leiter and I'm excited about that. Léa Seydoux is back as Dr. Madeleine Swann which is good for continuity and means she's SO dead.

Rami Malek = The villain. Okay. I'm cool with that. Let's see how that goes.

Ana De Armas = likely the main Bond girl. I haven't seen her in anything (yes, I haven't seen Blade Runner 2049). But she's certainly attractive, so that's a step in the right direction.

Billy Magnussen = Apparently, I've seen him in a few things (Bridge of Spies, The Big Short, Black Mirror and The People v. O.J. Simpson). I don't remember him as anything but Kato, off the top of my head. But hey, cool. He looks like he could practically be a new James Bond. Maybe he'll be another 00 agent?

Lashana Lynch = Having only seen her in Captain Marvel, I liked her in that, but I don't have a gauge of what she'll be doing here. So thumbs up for now.

David Dencik = No idea who he is. He looks like a villain, though.

Dali Benssalah = Never heard of him.

Lord and Miller's Sony TV Universe

Phil Lord and Chris Miller have signed a five-year deal to develop a television series based on Sony's access to the Marvel characters. Not much to go on with that, but I think this could be both a good thing and an absolutely horrible thing.

I trust Lord and Miller. They're not the problem. The problem is Sony, and the fact that the proper MCU doesn't have control over these characters. So whenever another new movie or project is announced, I feel hesitant to trust that it will be good. Even Spider-Man: Homecoming has tons of flaws that bug the hell out of me, and I have to assume it's Sony's fault, not folks like Kevin Feige (even though they're not infallible).

When a production house wants to do things like Black and Silver, or a Kraven spin-off film, I don't trust that their television side of things will be any better (similar to how FOX was working with the X-Men franchise and gave us those shows).

However, since this is TV instead of film, I'm more willing to give it a shot. I'd rather see a Spider-Man television series, for instance, than another movie that isn't in the MCU. It's all tough to say until more information is put out there about the characters they plan on using, what the series is, and so on.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 Starts Filming Next Year

Rather than 2021, they'll start production in 2020. That's awesome news. I wish they would have already started it a while back so that Vol 3 could be coming up soon after the next Spider-Man, particularly as we haven't heard about Doctor Strange 2 or Black Panther 2 or any of the other release dates.

Also, the working title is Hot Christmas. I wonder why...

Sonic the Hedgehog Trailer

The Paramount stars being the rings was a neat touch.

...Gangsta's Paradise? (Note: That is on my top 50, maybe even top 25 favorite songs of all time, so that's not the issue. The issue is WTF is it doing here?)

Why does Jim Carrey not look like Robotnik? Oh wait, okay. Wait, did they just spoil what is probably the end of the movie with that glimpse into his future appearance?

What the hell is this??

Update: It's since come out that director Jeff Fowler says the criticism of the design in the character is actually going to be taken to heart and they'll be changing how Sonic looks. How are they going to do this in six months? I don't know, but at least it's a good sign that they listened. Maybe they should have put out a photo of the concept art well enough in advance to have gotten ahead of that storm, though?

Ghost Rider and Helstrom Coming to Hulu in 2020

Two television shows, one about Ghost Rider and one about Helstrom, are going to be on Hulu.

I know nothing of Helstrom. I can't weigh in on that character or series.

With Ghost Rider, I might be in the minority, but I don't like the Gabriel Luna version of the character or Robbie Reyes in general or anything like that.

I'm also hesitant to fully trust the idea of a television series about Ghost Rider in general, as it needs enough of a budget to have GOOD CGI and not just what we got for Agents of SHIELD. That wasn't good enough for a show revolving around this character.

I'm interested in these, but I'm not too hopeful. Remember, Cloak & Dagger is supposed to be in the MCU just the same, and I still haven't even bothered with Runaways. Jeph Loeb is taking control over this just as much as with the other television shows like the Netflix ones, and while those had some great aspects, they were largely problematic. This isn't Kevin Feige and company. This is the other branch. You know, the ones who did Inhumans...

Peter Mayhew Passed Away at Age 74

RIP Chewbacca. Legendary character that never would have been fully brought to life without Mayhew's influence and care.