Movies have a long and twisted legacy of poor choices, strange marketing, and occasionally wonderful results. For example, the absolutely horrible job done by Disney to promote
John Carter. None of the advertisements explained what the property was, but made it out to be a wall-to-wall action film, which it wasn't. It created an expectation that couldn't possibly be fulfilled, so it tanked. Why am I bringing this up? Well I'm about to talk about current movie news, since it is all strange marketing, poor choices, and occasionally wonderful results. This is an experimental article that will try to follow in the footsteps of Doux News. I hope I'm adequate to the task.
The only new movie worth talking about this week was
The Raven, and it's apparently horrible (it currently has only a 20% on Rotten Tomatoes). I haven't seen it, and after reading some of those scathing reviews, I don't think I ever will.
Scarlett Johansson will not be appearing in next year's
Iron Man 3 because of scheduling conflicts. This is probably due to her being cast as Janet Leigh in the upcoming
Hitchcock movie (a biopic of him, not a movie by him since he died 22 years ago). This might mean they won't make the same mistake as they made on
Iron Man 2, as in using it as a spring board for another
Avengers film instead of focusing on a story specific to Tony Stark/Iron Man.
In sorta related news,
The Avengers has already raked in 178.4 million dollars. Wait, that doesn't make sense -- it hasn't even opened yet! Oh, that's how much it's made overseas since it opened in some countries on WEDNESDAY!!!!
A FOX Studio exec has stated that they will not mess with
Prometheus (i.e. editing for content to reduce it to a more accessible PG-13) even if it comes down with an "R" rating. Which is a relief because cutting Ridley Scott's movies never turn out well (See
Blade Runner,
Kingdom of Heaven, etc). (Along with the recent
Fringe announcement, I'm beginning to wonder if maybe someone sane came to power over there. Then again, maybe not.) A couple of weeks ago, two brilliant viral videos (
David 8 and
Ted 2023) were released, as well as an intriguing
website launched for the movie. As a marketing campaign, these are great teasers reminiscent of
The Dark Knight's viral marketing campaign.
Ralph Fiennes (
Harry Potter,
Wrath/Clash of the Titans) will be in the new Bond movie
Skyfall coming out later this year. The studio has also announced that from now on, new Bond movies will start coming out at regular intervals, with the next one premiering in 2014. After all the issues with MGM going bankrupt and Daniel Craig having conflicts with continuing in the role, I'm tentatively glad to see that we'll get more.
Peter Jackson has responded to criticism over his choice to film the new
Hobbit movie at 48 fps (Frames Per Second) instead of the industry standard of 24 fps. This might seem like a non-issue, but using higher frames per second completely changes the way film looks, giving it a more realistic feel. His defense is that using this format will become standard in coming years and is part of the natural evolution of movie-making. While I agree that technology is moving forward and we should accept that, I hope that he considers that using this format might not be a good idea for a fantasy film.
Kick Ass 2 (and 3) might actually happen. Filming is supposed to begin this summer. I personally loved the first one, but this announcement was completely unexpected.
In the category of painful, inexplicable and pointless news, it was announced that there will be a sequel to
Twins. It will be called
Triplets and adds Eddie Murphy to the cast along with returning stars Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito as their long lost third sibling. This is one of those announcements that has me scratching my head going, why? Why? And this isn't the only head scratcher. A few days ago, a trailer for a movie called
This is 40? came out. This is actually a sequel/spin-off to the movie
Knocked Up. Again I ask, WHY???
Final note - I understand that fans can be passionate, but there is such as thing as too passionate.
Amy Nicholson was one of the first critics to post a review for
The Avengers coming out next week. She was also the only one that posted a negative review, which in itself was contentious because she rated it with a 3 out of 5. This lone voice of descent has caused people to lash out at her with some unfairly harsh comments -- calling her names, belittling her skills as a writer, and generally being insufferable brats about someone having a different opinion. To be fair, she was pretty snarky in her review. But that's just it -- it was her review. It was her opinion. Isn't that the whole idea of being a critic? Critics have to be able to share their opinion, even if it isn't popular. Disagreeing with that opinion is fine, sharing that feeling with the writer is great. But raging at someone who is just doing their job is reprehensible, and makes our job impossible.
Thus ends the experiment! Please tell me what you think about any of these news items, or about the movie news article in general.
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Samantha M. Quinn spends most of her time in front of a computer typing away at one thing or another; when she has free time, she enjoys pretty much anything science fiction or fantasy-related.
