Posted by
Unknown
- Saturday, May 3, 2014
A few days ago, a rumor started going going around about a certain masked bounty hunter from the Star Wars universe. Slashfilm, who found the info by way of MakingStarWars.net, reports that Disney executives met at a breakfast in Disney World to discuss various properties related to Star Wars. One of the topics of discussion was Boba Fett and what a movie featuring the character front-and-center would look like.
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| Something like this, probably. |
The paraphrased quote making the rounds speaks to Disney's apparent difficulty with trying to keep the darker qualities of this villainous character while still placing him as the hero of the film. Basically, Disney is unsure how to make a “good guy” film with a traditional “bad guy.” Boba Fett has long been rumored as one of the characters receiving a spinoff film, and perhaps franchise, within the new Star Wars canon. Everyone, Disney execs included, is apparently excited about the character but the trouble remains: how to frame the film or character?
Slashfilm brings up some solid bad-but-good-guy examples from Disney's own roster, citing Wreck-It Ralph and Jack Sparrow as well as Maleficent. These are all characters who are either considered villains in their own world or who aren't quite good guys, and each film (save Maleficent, whose fate remains to be seen) has proven successful. They point out also that Ralph tries to overcome his bad-guy status and Jack Sparrow is never really an out-and-out villain. Their suggestion to set the film prior to the original Star Wars trilogy, focusing on the origins of Boba Fett after his father's death, might help mitigate some of Disney's worries about the character by tracking the development of the bounty hunter before he really becomes evil.
I have a slightly different suggestion for Disney, and they won't like it: they need to get up off their family-friendly high horse and recognize the characters they bought for who they are. I understand Disney has a reputation to consider, and they've done a decent job so far of keeping the Marvel movies (the closest comparison) relatively family-friendly—despite, say, the enormous body count of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. However, if you have a fan-favorite character who you're pretty sure could also make your company a decent chunk of change if given a movie, you're going to have to kowtow to that character's traits a little unless you totally alter the character and thus miss the point. I'm not suggesting Disney should just go and make an R-rated Boba Fett film—although how awesome would that be?—and they never will. That's not their business. They do, however, need to think outside the Mouse House box. Just because a character is villainous, or has villainous traits, doesn't mean he can't have some redeeming characteristics or be impossible to root for. This is basically the same reason George Lucas changed Han Solo shooting Greedo first in A New Hope.
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| A veeeerrrrry popular decision. |
My two cents: there are shades of gray, Disney, and I'm not referring to the erotica. A character doesn't have to be traditionally “good” or “bad.” Boba Fett is a bounty hunter. He hunts or kills people for money. So, he's a businessman. Perhaps at the time of the original trilogy, the Empire was just offering the most amount of money for the work. Over his long career, Fett could have taken other jobs that are more traditionally moral than his disintegration escapades referenced by Darth Vader. Let's find out if he's a hunter with a code of honor. What about the kind-of feud he has with Han Solo? There's a story right there, between two scoundrels. Hell, Disney could kill two birds with one blaster and make a Han Solo/Boba Fett film. The point is, a character can be fun to watch and root for even if he is traditionally a villain. It's all in the story. If you see him as a villain, you'll treat him as such and no more. If you see him as a man with choices, then you have a character, and then you have a film.
Thoughts? Can Disney produce a satisfactory Boba Fett film? If not, should they even try? Is another character more deserving of a spinoff? Talk about the scum and villainy of the Disney universe in the comments below.
Posted by
Unknown
- Friday, May 2, 2014
There has been yet another addition to the cast of the all new Fantastic Four movie in the form of Tim Blake Nelson, who will be playing villain Harvey Elder, also known by his alias "Mole Man," who is described as a bizarre-looking scientist who lives under the earth and absolutely detests humanity.
Nelson has had many roles in various big films over the years, including starring in Marvel's very own 2008 movie adaptation of The Incredible Hulk as Dr. Samuel Sterns, so he's certainly no stranger to playing a comic-book scientist.
However, his role in the reboot will be a rather small one, although The Hollywood Reporter recently noted: "Elder's appearance does set up the character to be the villain in future installments of the franchise."
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| How Mole Man appears in the comic books. |
The Fantastic Four reboot is set for release in June 2015.
Do you think Tim Blake Nelson will play the role of "Mole Man" well? Let us know!
Posted by
The Dace Man
- Thursday, May 1, 2014
Hey, hey, hey, Dacetacular Nation! Check out episode 45 of The Dace Man Show with hosts Dace, Gibby, Frank Ward, and Nikki Mills!
Join the Dace Man and crew this week as they break down the following:
::SPORTS NEWS::
- Current NHL playoff results
- Current MLB standings
- Current NBA playoff results
- Plus much, much more!!
::WEIRD NEWS WITH GIBBY::
- Time to get down and weird with Gib and, might I add, Bay
::FRANK'S CORNER::
- What will Frank da Tank have in store this week?
::CELEB NEWS::
- Bob Hoskins passed away
- Celeb birthdays from April 24th to April 30th
- Miley back on her feet
- George Clooney got engaged this week
- Paul Simon caught up in a domestic dispute
Plus the High Five: Top 5 People Who Shouldn't Twerk and The Douche Bag of The Week! All that and more, only on The Dace Man Show!
Listen live to The Dace Man Show every Wednesday at 8 p.m. EST on Mega Powers Radio.
Follow on Facebook: Mega Powers Radio | Fanboys Anonymous | The Dace Man Show | I Got Game Play | Geek Speak | Rose Colored Reviews | Sports Talk Weekly | Addicted to Anime
Posted by
Orion Petitclerc
Not only does this May mark the 30th Anniversary since the creation of Marvel's symbiotes, but it also marks another special, albeit bittersweet occasion. Ten years ago the first superhero MMORPG, City of Heroes, went live with an innovative character creation system and a bold direction. It rivaled its closest (and, surprisingly, younger) competition, World of Warcraft, and paved the way for both Champions Online and DC Universe Online, both of which still survive to this day.
The game's player community boomed with each new update as the worlds of Paragon City, the Rogue Isles (featured in City of Villains), and Praetoria (an in-between dimension in City of Heroes: Going Rogue) evolved and expanded. It even introduced the very first in-game player-created content system, Mission Architect, to the world of MMO games, which allowed players to create their very own missions and story arcs with premade or custom enemy and ally factions to publish and play with their friends and community.
Unfortunately, the golden age of City of Heroes came to an abrupt and sad end in 2012 when the game's publisher, NCsoft, shut down its servers permanently with little to no explanation as to why. Millions of players—myself included, a veteran since at least 2005—were suddenly displaced from their favorite superhero MMO. Many attempted to fill the void with its aforementioned descendants, but nothing can truly replace Paragon City and its heroes and villains. The City of Heroes player community, however, remained steadfast and took refuge on social websites such as the popular Titan Network.
The game's legacy lives on in its community and in two equally special efforts to relive the golden days. Missing Worlds Media's City of Titans and Plan Z Studios' Heroes and Villains are two player-run video game development projects currently in the preproduction stages of creating City of Heroes' spiritual successors. Once a joint operation under the Plan Z banner, a group of displaced players with little to no experience in developing video games banded together shortly after City of Heroes' demise with a dream of recreating our lost world. Plan Z suffered from a schism of ideas early on, creating the splinter team, Missing Worlds Media, and both have progressed with their projects since.
Last year, Missing Worlds Media was the first of the two studios to both organize a Kickstarter campaign for its project and successfully complete the campaign by accruing a whopping 211% of its initial goal of $320k. The outstanding amount of funds was then used to buy the necessary tools to put some serious elbow grease into the game they promised their backers—even receiving a generous upgrade to an Unreal Engine 4 license from Epic Games itself. Missing Worlds Media reports that it will complete its preproduction phase soon and has revealed a few screenshots and videos of its work with Unreal 4.
On the other side of the map, Plan Z has silently carried on with the production of Heroes and Villains, although it has yet to employ crowd funding as its sister studio has. Nevertheless, it proceeds to astound by regularly updating its community following with development progress on the game's integral systems and even wowed us with rendered screenshots of the character creator screen, zone concept art, and several in-game renderings of the Hanging Gardens of the Antiverse—which bear a striking and fond resemblance to the Shadow Shard of City of Heroes—in celebration of the belated game's tenth anniversary.
Although both projects are at different stages of production, City of Heroes will surely have two amazing, spectacular, astonishing spiritual successors not too far down the road, from which the glory days can once again be revisited in a new and exciting light. Missing Worlds Media and Plan Z aren't planning to fill City of Heroes' big shoes; they only boast two games that will take their inspiration far beyond what City of Heroes could have been and farther than what any other superhero MMO will ever reach.
Were you one of the many displaced heroes, villains, or rogues from the City of Heroes shutdown? Have you been following and supporting City of Titans and Heroes and Villains? How will you celebrate this bittersweet tenth anniversary? Share your memories and experiences in the comments section below.
"We can be heroes
Just for one day…" –David Bowie
Posted by
Mike Paden
- Wednesday, April 30, 2014
Sand & Snow is a Game of Thrones podcast covering all the weekly happenings in the world of Westeros and beyond! Hyle Snow is a film major who exclusively enjoys Game of Thrones through the HBO television series. Jade Sand is a science major who has also read all of the books in George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. Together they gather to discuss and review the latest episode while also comparing it with the books, with their own brand of insight and speculation.
Beware! This podcast is dark and full of spoilers! This show covers all the content up to and including the titled episode of Game of Thrones. It also discusses the details of the book series A Song of Ice and Fire up to the current part of the story that the show has reached. However, there will be no spoiling of anything in the future of the TV series or story within the books.
:: Season 4, Episode 3 ::
"Breaker of Chains"
Daenarys reaches the city of Meereen; The Hound offers Arya a lesson in how things are; Jamie shows his love for Cersei; and we discuss the rest of the fallout from the "Purple Wedding." Also, we get a new microphone!!
- Follow the
Sand & Snow Podcast -
Posted by
Fellonius Munch
The classic British actor Bob Hoskins has died today, aged 71, following a bout of pneumonia!
Easily one of England's most popular actors of the last few decades, he was critically acclaimed for performances such as crime thriller The Long Good Friday and also well-known for appearing in Pink Floyd's The Wall before going on to international success as Eddie Valiant in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and as Mario in an adaptation of the classic videogame Super Mario Bros. Hoskins appeared in many enjoyable films and never gave a bad performance throughout his entire career, beginning in 1972.
He chose to retire last year as a result of being diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, the same neurological condition that affects Back to the Future star Michael J. Fox. Although concerned for his well-being, many of us believed that moment wouldn't have been the last we'd have seen of the lovable thespian.
Retiring as a world-renowned, multiple-award-winning actor of over 40 years, Bob Hoskins not only leaves behind a legacy of great entertainment, he leaves behind armies of fans the world over and generations of performers who have him to thank for catching the acting bug. That isn't half bad for a former window cleaner and lorry driver. Thankfully for IMDb, however, we'll still have his wisdom at least:
When you get to my age, what you want is the cameo. You get paid a lot
of money. You fly in for a couple of weeks. Everybody treats you like
the crown jewels. It's all great and if the film turns out to be a load
of shit, nobody blames you!
Sound off, Fanboys and Fangirls! Tell us your favorite Bob Hoskins movie and television moments in the comments box below and thank you for reading.
Posted by
Anthony Mango
- Tuesday, April 29, 2014
We're getting ready to kick off the biggest time of the year for movies: summer blockbuster season! Over the next few months, many of the films that come out are going to score ridiculously high numbers and shatter box office records, raking in millions (or even billions) in ticket sales.
However, the big bad word—piracy—will rear its ugly head as well. These movies are likely to be prime targets that people want to watch, and that means they'll also be the films people will download illegally.
Last year we went through and gave our predictions for what films could top the list of the most downloaded movies of the year. Now it's time to do that again. This time around, we're going to toss out 25 titles that could make it onto this list. At the end of the year, we will add the actual numbers to this list to see how our predictions turned out.
The group for 2013 consisted of several blockbusters of the comic book genre and a smattering of others as well. Comedies can hit big (The Hangover Part 3), and generic action films can get quite a few downloads (Fast and Furious 6). Oscar buzz can also play a part (Silver Linings Playbook), but then again, you can just have a movie that comes out of the blue—one that people didn't want to pay to see but were interested in checking out nonetheless (Gangster Squad and Now You See Me). Keeping that in mind, here are my predictions for 2014's most downloaded films (in alphabetical order). The titles in bold are the ones I think will be in the top 10.
- 22 Jump Street
- A Million Ways to Die in the West
- Brick Mansions
- Captain America: The Winter Soldier
- Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
- Godzilla
- Guardians of the Galaxy
- Hercules
- How to Train Your Dragon 2
- Interstellar
- Jupiter Ascending
- Maleficent
- Neighbors
- RoboCop
- Sex Tape
- Tammy
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
- The Amazing Spider-Man 2
- The Expendables 3
- The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug / The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
- The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1
- The Other Woman
- Thor: The Dark World
- Transformers: Age of Extinction
- X-Men: Days of Future Past
To break this down further, there are plenty of comic book movies on the list, which doesn't really need much explanation. These films do huge numbers, so it shouldn't be a surprise to see a lot of them here. I'm fairly confident that the three comedies on the list (22 Jump Street, Neighbors, and Sex Tape) will end up doing well. 22 Jump Street follows the massive success of the first film and crosses over between comedy and action. Neighbors is getting a lot of buzz, and Seth Rogen's comedies typically appeal to the audience that is really into torrenting files—younger folk. This is what separates it from something like Tammy; fans of Melissa McCarthy will probably go out to the theaters to see it more than anything else.
What I'm not too sure about, however, is the differentiation between The Other Woman and Sex Tape. The former is doing well at the box office and, with Kate Upton being promoted in it, stands a chance at replacing the latter. However, the subject matter for Sex Tape is tough to ignore. People look for pornography all the time, and if the film does not get panned for being a poor comedy, it will have an easy sell with that title. Sadly, a lot of people will stumble across that just hoping to see some nudity in it. Watch out for all of the 13-year-old boys who will download it and then be disappointed, like what happened with Coyote Ugly back when that was released.
If I were to try to pinpoint one film that will beat out every other on this list, I could see that honor going to either The Hunger Games or Transformers: Age of Extinction.
Some honorable movie mentions that almost made my list were The Lego Movie, 300: Rise of an Empire, Need for Speed, Divergent, Lucy, Edge of Tomorrow, Dumb and Dumber To, and Sin City: A Dame to Kill For. These are all films that could end up taking one of the spots above in a top 25, particularly if they end up taking spots away from films like Jupiter Ascending and Hercules, but I don't have as much faith in them having a shot at the top 10.
RESULTS (Source: Excipio, hat tip to Variety.com)
1. The Wolf of Wall Street: 30.035 million (Paramount, Dec. 25, 2013)
2. Frozen: 29.919 million (Disney, Nov. 27, 2013)
3. RoboCop: 29.879 million (MGM, Feb. 12, 2014; and Orion, July 17, 1987)
4. Gravity: 29.357 million (Warner Bros., Oct. 4, 2013)
5. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug: 27.627 million (Warner Bros., Dec. 13, 2013)
6. Thor: The Dark World: 25.749 million (Disney/Marvel, Nov. 8, 2013)
7. Captain America: The Winter Soldier: 25.628 million (Disney/Marvel, April 4, 2014)
8. The Legend of Hercules: 25.137 million (Summit, Jan. 10, 2014)
9. X-Men: Days of Future Past: 24.380 million (20th Century Fox, May 23, 2014)
10. 12 Years a Slave: 23.653 million (Fox Searchlight, Oct. 18, 2013)
11. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire: 23.543 million (Lionsgate, Nov. 22, 2013)
12. American Hustle: 23.143 million (Sony/Columbia, Dec. 13, 2013)
13. 300: Rise of an Empire: 23.096 million (Warner Bros., March 7, 2014)
14. Transformers: Age of Extinction: 21.65 million (Paramount, June 27, 2014)
15. Godzilla: 20.956 million (Warner Bros., May 16, 2014)
16. Noah: 20.334 million (Paramount, March 28, 2014)
17. Divergent: 20.312 million (Lionsgate, March 21, 2014)
18. Edge of Tomorrow: 20.299 million (Warner Bros., June 6, 2014)
19. Captain Phillips: 19.817 million (Sony/Columbia, Oct. 11, 2013)
20. Lone Survivor: 19.130 million (Universal, Dec. 25, 2013)
This list shows once more that the comic book genre has a huge stranglehold on any list that is film related, yet despite being so heavily pirated, these are the movies that are making the most money overall anyway. The most curious of the bunch in my mind for the top ten is The Legend of Hercules, as I just couldn't imagine that many people wanting to view that film—although I certainly understand why they did not wish to pay to do such. The lack of some of the other titles, like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or Guardians of the Galaxy is even more perplexing. It will be interesting to see what happens in 2015.
What do you think of the results for 2014?
Which ones did you download or see in theaters?
Tell us your thoughts in the comments below!
