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.
Week in Geek was put on hold for a few weeks as I've been dealing with a loss in the family and tons of other scheduling issues. Rather than trying to cram everything in halfheartedly, I've decided to use this as a jumping-off point where Week in Geek might not necessarily be every single week if there isn't anything to talk about. Instead, things may carry over from one week to the next if a story is evolving, or if there just isn't anything else going on that I wanted to voice my opinions about.
As such, let's recap a few weeks of things that I would have been mentioning had I been able to:
Old
I was able to check out M. Night's new film, Old. It wasn't something that I was overwhelmingly excited about on the level of Avengers: Endgame or anything, but it looked interesting and I figured I'd give it a shot after the strength of Split and Glass.
It's fine. The movie's not something I'd recommend to anyone on more than a one-watch basis for something to kill time. It's not particularly ambitious or anything that I'd imagine will stay in my head for much longer, nor would I likely revisit it and rewatch it in the future. However, it did its job. I was entertained and the mystery kept my attention all throughout.
I Believe in Matt Damon
Matt Damon revealed that he had been offered the part of Harvey Dent for The Dark Knight.
I KNEW IT. I had been saying for years that Damon would have been a fantastic choice for Dent and one of my top fan cast picks.
I just wanted to tout that I've been saying that into a void and that it seems I'm not the only one.
Ironheart in Wakanda Forever
Rumors say Riri Williams will make an appearance in the next Black Panther film.
Call me crazy, but I just don't think this is a good idea. Wouldn't her inclusion kind of diminish Shuri's role that she had established? Then again, I'm in the camp of "T'challa should have been recast" so I guess I shouldn't be talking, according to some people who have a different opinion.
In an ideal world, my Black Panther 2 would have been T'challa, Shuri, Okoye, Nakia and M'Baku with Everett Ross as our core protagonist group (M'Baku with a smaller role, most likely, as the leader of the armies) facing off against Namor and a few others. You could put Namora/Namorita in opposition to Shuri, have Attuma or Krang as the secret TRUE bad guy so Namor can turn good (well, antihero).
Then, they could have had a Namor spin-off film that incorporated characters like Walter Newell, Andromeda, Dorma, and either Attuma or Krang is the main villain (whichever you didn't use) along with Orka, Piranha, Tiger Shark...whatever it might be.
I don't think a film surrounding Shuri becoming Black Panther, nor some other guy just filling in the role, while dealing with the death of T'challa, after the first film was all about that in a similar way, that happens to also focus any bit of time on just going "Hey, Ironheart's a show coming up. You might want to check that out, guys!" is the best course of action.
In the past, I've mostly said Marvel can do no wrong. However, these Disney+ shows haven't been exactly their best work in my opinion, nor was Black Widow. I'm starting to think the team has exhausted a lot of their creativity and is coasting a bit.
Werewolf By Night
Another rumor says Werewolf By Night will be a Disney+ series. I hope that's not the case.
Admittedly, I'm not familiar with the character outside of an extremely basic sense. However, it seems like it's just another typical werewolf story. That's been done a million times on a thousand shows and movies. It's not something I want to invest 6+ hours into watching.
Make that a character who pops up on a Midnight Sons show. Make it a show that revolves around a team of characters dealing with the dark and mystical side of things where they can encounter werewolves and the like. Just do Ghost Rider, Daimon Hellstrom, Morbius (would have been better than a solo film, I think), Blade, Man-Thing, Moon Knight and Jericho Drumm (but maybe don't call him Brother Voodoo as that kind of seems a bit dated).
Venom: Let There Be Carnage Trailer
Carnage looks great sometimes and too much like wonky CGI in other shots.
I still think Woody wasn't necessarily the right person for the job. That was fan casting that people had mentioned for so many years, but it doesn't mean he's the best and only person who could have pulled it off.
The first Venom film was fine, but not great. I can't help but to feel this will be similar and that everyone who has high expectations will be let down, particularly when it comes to Carnage. They're not going to make him the brutal serial killer R-rated slaughter machine and you know it, deep down.
New Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Movie
TMNT is a property that I think you can pretty much keep recycling, but the more you do it with "your own spin on it", the less anyone will care.
As a kid, I loved the cartoon and the first two films. As an adult, the first film 100% holds up and is still fantastic, while the second is still pretty great in a lot of ways.
The Megan Fox films...well, they had a few good ideas and more than a few really bad ones. They're what you get when you have too many chefs messing with the soup.
Is it awful to say someone should just commission me to write up a trilogy and I think I'd do a better job? Maybe. It's presumptuous and pretentious and arrogant, but if I didn't believe that, I wouldn't have notes already written up for a trilogy that I'm confident would be great, wouldn't I?
If this Jost production comes to fruition, I'm certainly going to check it out. All the films get a watch by me. The TV shows, not so much. That's too long of a commitment.
South Park's Deal with Paramount +
Trey Parker and Matt Stone have worked out a deal with Paramount+ to do 14 movies (2 per year). That's good news for them and for P+, which needs content. I don't know if this is going to specifically bump up the subscribers, as South Park isn't as big as it once was, but they seem to get a resurgence every few years. Maybe another is right around the corner.
South Park is a show that hasn't gone downhill in the same way The Simpsons or Family Guy did. Parker and Stone have it in them to make some great content in the future and I'll definitely be checking these things out. I just hope that it's more of the Mysterion arc and less of Randy with the weed, as that's not been my favorite material.
Scarlett Johansson Suing Disney
Based on Black Widow not just being released in theaters, Scarlett Johansson is suing Disney for cutting into her profits. Emma Stone may do the same for Cruella.
Frankly, I get it. I support the initiative. If they had it in their contracts that they negotiated a price tag based on being able to earn a percentage of the profits, then Disney made a decision to do something that would cut into that while not cutting out their own profits in the process, that's a duplicitous deal.
HOWEVER, and this is a big however...I don't think they have much ground to stand on. This wasn't done out of nowhere. The pandemic wasn't something they saw coming when they settled on this deal and the past 2 years have been mired with confusing theatrical release structures. Disney's got to look out for its own best interests in a lot of ways and this is a circumstance I can imagine they never would have gone down had COVID-19 not been a thing.
My guess is the lawsuit gets dropped. Scarlett gets a settlement to compensate her for a decent chunk of money she might have potentially earned. Disney sets the precedent that people shouldn't consider doing this in the future. Upcoming deals have clauses in their contracts that state specifics about these sorts of situations and people are less likely to be willing to get a percentage of the profits until the pandemic settles, which for all we know could take years based on how everyone just keeps being irresponsible.
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