The post-credit sequence for Sonic the Hedgehog 2 revealed that the few Sonic Adventure references weren’t just window dressing. It was unveiled that Robotnik’s past will come to haunt him, especially with the reveal of Project Shadow. The first tease of Shadow the Hedgehog is definitely something fans were excited to see in the live-action film series, and we got quite the confirmation in the post-credit sequence. Yet, it also opened up the question of just how they might tackle the character.
While the second entry did introduce Knuckles on the villain’s side early on, he was more misled by Robotnik and his own honor code. Still, having a “bad guy who becomes a good guy” storyline in two films in a row might be overkill. Luckily, writer Pat Casey offered some insight into what makes Shadow stand out in his interview on The GHZ Podcast.
He’s a match for Sonic, but like with such a different personality. And not like Knuckles, who is sort of mislead. Shadow is driven by anger and revenge, you know? I almost feel like Sonic, when he encounters Shadow, he’s like: “Well, I’ll just teach him about the power of friendship like with Knuckles, bada bing bada boom,” but that not going to work on Shadow, you know? This is like, Sonic’s never had to deal with someone as emotionally damaged as Shadow but he has with Robotnik.
Pat Casey
It definitely sounds like they are fully embracing Shadow’s character from the original films. Sonic having a family and a few victories against Robotnik might put him on a high horse. Especially as it’ll be his first time seeing another hedgehog-like him, which may add to his hope to befriend him. We don’t know if we might expect other new characters to get introduced like Rogue or Amy, but there’s definitely the possibility that the cast will grow. So, it’ll be exciting to see what the third entry has to offer and maybe even a more mature storyline as Sonic faces his biggest challenge yet.
You can watch the full interview with writer Pat Casey here:
It looks like principal photography is slowly coming to a close on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, as Pom Klementieff took to her Instagram account to share that she has finished her work on the project. Of course, the film won’t release until May 5th, 2023 and they might definitely plan some reshoots in the coming months. Still, Klementieff, who plays Mantis that became a permanent member of the Guardians after the second entry, shared a cake with the iconic “We are Groot” line as a way to celebrate finishing up her work on the threequel.
Her saying “We are Groot Forever” continues to highlight that this film is very likely wrapping up the franchise or at least the version that we’ve been following since 2014. We don’t know how exactly it’ll warp up the storyline and what members might continue their journey across the galaxy afterward.
Sadly, there have been hints that a good amount of members might end their time with the MCU in the upcoming project, but many things can get adapted throughout the production process. Yet, Gunn has envisioned this film for quite some time and is gladly returning to finish what he started. Still, it definitely feels like it’s going to leave us with an emotional gut-punch once the film ends up.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is still some time away, but that doesn’t mean we’ll have to wait too long for them to make their return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. As the Thor: Love and Thunder trailer revealed, we got aglimpse at the team’s return alongside their latest addition, the God of Thunder. While it seems their paths won’t cross for too long, it does seem like this film will lead into the upcoming third entry of the film. As such, it would make sense for its director James Gunn to have some input.
Luckily, Twitter user @NerfSolo asked the director if he might have had some say in how Taika Waititi tackled the team, and the director swiftly answered that he asked for them to make a few adjustments. As a lot of these projects are a collaborative effort, it seems that Waititi made the requested adjustments from James Gunn.
Of course, we’ll likely never find out what exactly he requested to change, but it highlights that the directors still continue to exchange notes as they work on the various projects. Perhaps some of the adjustments were made to ease in viewers from that project into the third entry, but Vol. 3 might be mostly disconnected. Last time we saw the Guardians in Avengers: Endgame, they were making their way to find the displaced Gamora, who originated from a different timeline. Going by trailer, it seems they are still doing some work for hire, but it’s uncertain if that may still play into the film in any way.
The box office numbers are once again here, and it’s been quite an interesting weekend. Smaller programming has been on a raise as The Northman pulled in $12M and The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent managed $7.1M. What is interesting is that the former had a worse audience score with a B but still had the stronger pull. Robert Eggers‘ film may get hit a bit in its second weekend with word-of-mouth but it still had a stronger pull and will secure its audience. As Deadline points out, these two films share a similar audience which ends up cannibalizing each other. In the era of Netflix losing its momentum, it may be a showcase of the importance of counter-programming to streaming offerings.
The smaller pull and adding non-four-quadrantprogramming also add some momentum to the theater that may become an advantage for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness once it opens in just a few weeks. Speaking of Multiverse, Everything Everywhere All at Once has been continuing to expand and is climbing up the ladder to become one of A24’s most successful releases. So, it’s definitely an uplifting trend to see these titles gain more momentum once again, as smaller budget films pulling in an audience.
The weekend’s top performer ended up being The Bad Guys, as the Universal and Dreamworks Animation’s film is overperforming. Initial expectations saw it at $15M but it ended up ending the weekend with $24M. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 had a stronghold as well, as it now is nearing $150M with a $15.2M weekend. So, the weekend has been quite strong for indie and family showings. The Sonic sequel is also currently further moving towards $300M worldwide as it holds strong as the best performing video game adaptation.
Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore has managed to hold on to the third spot, but it’s the worst second-weekend drop for any entry of the Fantastic Beasts franchise, but it’s the second-worst for the Harry Potter franchise which had a 72% drop. To be fair, it was also coming off of a $169M opening weekend. Yet, it must be highlighted that the film has been doing strong international, which is becoming its saving grace but might not be able to balance out its current standing as part of the Wizarding World franchise.
It’s never easy to write a film script with a specific actor in mind. There’s always a chance that they’d have no interest in the project, or potentially even end up missing out due to scheduling conflicts. Luckily, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, which was written with Nicolas Cage playing a fictional version of himself, managed to get the actor to join the project. One of the writers of the script, Kevin Etten, who wrote it alongside Tom Gormican, shared that they almost didn’t get the actor to join, as Cage was hesitant at first.
We were told that Nick has done these projects before and he’s not wild about Nick as Nick. And we weren’t two guys who had a huge body of work that you could point to and be like, ‘No, trust us. The funny part about that was we have a bunch of studios interested in the script. But there’s an asterisk on all of this meaning if he doesn’t want to do it, your sale goes away. Like, by the way, we don’t want this fucking thing if he’s not in it. There is no other version of it. When he was reading the script it was like this sort of double anxiety. It’s not like if he doesn’t do it, we’ll offer it to somebody else. It was gone
Kevin Etten
Once it seemed uncertain if the actor would join, they’ve also considered casting someone else in the role, which seemingly included Daniel Day-Lewis and even Christian Bale. Luckily, we know that Cage ended up joining the cast and bringing the fictional version of himself to life.
There were times when I think I… was trying to talk myself into other ideas. The only actually good idea — I don’t know whose it was — was to have either Christian Bale or Daniel Day-Lewis playing Nick Cage.
Kevin Etten
Even if we got the original vision, it would’ve been fun to imagine just how crazy it would look if someone else took on the role. Though, it would be fun to explore the concept with different actors, which could create some interesting scenarios and very
Michael Waldron has been quite busy as he’s promoting his latest Marvel project, the upcoming release of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. He made quite the splash after working on the first season of Loki that he was swiftly attached to write up the script for the film. In an interview with The Playlist, he shared his thoughts on the new directing duo Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, who is taking over for Kate Herron, who gave us the iconic first season.
Benson and Moorhead, I know those guys. They’re great. They’re brilliant in their own right. You know, I think they’re going to come in and they’re going to do what everybody on this project does, which is to elevate, you know? Then they’ll take what was great about it and fit it with their own awesome instincts and everything and hopefully will make something even better
Michael Waldron
The directing duo left an impression with Marvel Studios after their work on Moon Knight, and they have teased that they are excited to bring their experience from that series to this new project. It’s also the first project of Marvel Studios to get a second season, which creates an interesting scenario on how exactly it might fit as a sequel to the first series from 2021 and fit into the ever-growing MCU.
Waldron being excited certainly adds to what the future may have in store for us, especially with the cliffhanger from the first season teasing the arrival of Kang the Conqueror. It’ll likely closely connect to the upcoming Ant-Man and the Wasp threequel. So, we’ll see if we might see some familiar faces pop up.
The last few days have been rough for Netflix. Not only did they publicly have to acknowledge that they lost subscribers for the first time in over ten years, but they’ll face 2M more jumping ship by the next quarter. Subsequently, investors are furious and fearful as their shares have dropped by a scary amount. Many find themselves wondering what exactly has led to this sudden shift within the market, as streaming was seen as this bottomless potential with billions of subscribers. What seems like they have potentially reached their limit, may showcase a general trend that has been waiting to show its fangs over the years.
One thing is for sure, it’s not a good look for Netflix and there are many discussion points that can be made on what led to this current downward spiral. Netflix will still hold on to its top spot and we’re already seeing it with the decision to add an ad-supported version at a cheaper price. Yet, there’s one aspect that seems worth exploring and that is Netflix’s obsession with quantity. They are investing a lot of money in originals, which leads us to get a diverse selection of projects. Yet, it also led to the new perception of the streamer becoming a safe haven for canceled projects but sadly a new trend has arisen.
Oddly enough, they’ve become obsessed with swiftly canceling projects. While some select projects manage to have some sense of longevity, they manage to drop franchises that have even proven to be quite successful. When Bright was first released in 2017, it was one of their most-watched films. Yet, somehow the sequel was buried at one point without any fanfare, and we got a prequel Anime spinoff that had little to no marketing push. There are projects where we do get some news ahead of its release, but there’s a trend that a lot of it is creator-driven.
The biggest example of Netflix’s modern marketing approach was their live-action Cowboy Bebop series. While production did face quite the delay and an adaptation of such a cult classic was definitely going to face some backlash, it just suddenly arrived. Its release date was announced on August 23rd and would hit the streamer on November 19th. At the time we didn’t get a trailer to build up the excitement and it wasn’t until the 19th of October that we got a mini-episode titled The Lost Session. we wouldn’t get the actual trailer until the 27th with only a few more weeks before it hit Netflix.
By the time we got any actual promotion or the series, people’s opinions have already been made on what to expect and a new audience had barely any time to relate to it. Considering it was released on the 19th of November, it barely even got a few weeks before Netflix just dropped the axe on the series on December 9th. Early reports indicated that the production was going in expecting multiple seasons and it was cut short before it even got started. The issue is also we don’t know what exactly the metric is that they are going for, especially with newly established franchises. They seemingly banked on the addition of the anime which may have hurt the release more than anything else.
It almost creates this belief that existing IPs will always draw in an audience no matter what. Yes, Cowboy Bebop has an extensive following but it’s also quite a bit more niche than some might expect, especially given Netflix’s focus on worldwide viewership. They are currently working on two other projects with Avatar: The Last Airbender and One Piece that have strongly established audiences but would still require a certain amount of marketing to ensure fans that this will be a faithful adaptation while pulling in new audiences.
There’s also a strange inconsistency with how much marketing a project ends up getting. As we were speaking of building upon existing IPs, there is the series Human Resources, the spinoff of the animated series Big Mouth, that got released on March 18th. The series actually got the first teaser back on October 4th. Even if it was short, it had the strict advantage of building upon an already established franchise on the service even if the naming wouldn’t hint at a connection. Its official trailer dropped in January, which gave it multiple months of momentum ahead of its release. The Season 2 renewal wasn’t until a full month before an announcement was made.
Ironically, a project that already has a well-established audience is given more time than a project that only a select few really are aware of. The odd decision to drop many animation projects as a result of the current development creates this odd disconnect of what exactly Netflix’s end goal is. They seemingly are dogpiling project after project that get no more than one or, if they’re lucky, two seasons.
Even those that seem like sure-fire franchises to build upon are killed off before they even get a chance to get going. The life and death of a series, or even an entire franchise, ends faster before it even has a chance to start. With the amount of growing competition, it’ll get more and more difficult for this model to survive by only giving spinoffs time to grow and just wait and see if a new series, even if based on a new IP, will somehow end up becoming successful.
Once a show drops with every episode, there’s hard to no additional marketing at play to keep it alive. They pretty much just bank on the show living on their own without putting in the work to keep it so. Disney+, Amazon Prime, Peacock, and more are slowly leaning towards weekly releases as it keeps these series alive way more than a single release. Yes, viewers are complaining about it but it’s a sign of how these continued marketing attempts build up the momentum as we get more impatient for what lies at the end. Perhaps Cowboy Bebop could’ve had some more attention given to it if it was a weekly release, especially as it moved away from the more disconnected storylines of the original.
Yes, Squid Game technically was one of the most talked-about series for weeks but that was a lightning in-the-bottle moment. If Netflix is hoping to keep that kind of series as their ongoing pillar, they are putting all their eggs into a single basket. Competition is rising, the demand is higher than ever and growth can no longer be the only focus. Some people subscribe to their service for specific series and franchises. If they have the feeling it barely sticks around, they won’t either. Word-of-mouth depends if the series is a game-changer and only rarely do we see that happen.
We’re seeing a new era of television, as Netflix’s original model is potentially reaching its limit. We’re either going to see more hybrid models moving forward, as we slowly step back into elements that made broadcast television work. As legacy companies are getting their hands back on their projects and Netflix is more dependent on its originals to keep people watching, they might require the number of reasons that remain as binge-able as The Office, Friends, and more. As they are losing their usual library and may soon no longer have all the bit IPs they usually had available, investments will only continue to grow moving forward.
People come to watch The Ozark, but they stay to watch their favorite comfort show. At some point, they became so dependent on existing series, that the demand for newer ones has reached some rather questionable highs if they keep canceling shows out of convenience. perhaps shifting to more long-form storytelling with various stories unfolding and growing audiences across multiple seasons will benefit them moving forward. With Netflix’s Geeked Week on the horizon, perhaps we’ll see a new shift in how they tackle their projects moving forward.
Here’s an interesting revelation, but it looks like the upcoming Star Wars Disney+ series Andor was already mapped out ahead of production on its first. While we still have no release date, the Director of Photography, Adrian Goldman, revealed in an interview with TVCultura that the series was originally mapped out with five seasons in mind. Now, it seems that they have decided to go with three instead. It’s uncertain why exactly the change was made, as he doesn’t elaborate on it. The full quote, as translated by Bespin Bulletin, is as follows:
The series I worked on was supposed to be five seasons long, but I think it’s not happening. It will now have three maybe.
Adrian Goldman
Bespin also adds that they’ve heard that multiple seasons were planned and the timing of it taking place five years ahead of Rogue One was quite deliberate. They may have noticed it is difficult to fill out a story for each year and adapted it depending on what stories they wanted to tell. They also are seemingly focusing on filming the seasons back-to-back so they will get these out at a decent pace over the coming years. It’s certainly exciting to know that many more Star Wars series are heading our way and Disney+ is also continuing to offer a balance between long-running shows and mini-series.
Robert Eggers has made quite the splash in the industry with his work in his films The Witch and The Lighthouse. Now, he is also going to leave his imprint on Viking stories with The Northman, which sees Alexander Skarsgard in the role of Amleth on a path of vengeance. While he seems quite proud of his story, he still has openly talked about the hardships of not only working with a larger budget but also the stronger involvement of the studio. So, in an interview with CQ, he highlights that he’s moving his focus to a smaller production once again.
Right now, I definitely want to do something smaller, where it won’t be as painful, or I’ll have full control. There’s always give and take and studio notes. There always is. There was on The Witch. I didn’t have this much gray hair when we wrapped photography. It’s all from post-production.
Robert Eggers
If you’re wondering what he might be focusing on, he highlighted that he definitely has no interest in filming something in the modern age. A big part of what he enjoys is “doing all this historical research” to bring his films to life. So, he goes on to highlight that he has a disconnect on filming modern technology.
If I was making a contemporary film, what am I supposed to do with myself? Obsess over wallpaper swatches, until my eyes fall out? It’s just not interesting. For whatever reason, it just does not inspire me. And you can’t shoot something that doesn’t inspire you.
Robert Eggers
He does hint that he’s been listening to “lots of lutes” as he is starting an Elizabethan phase. So, we might expect that era to become the main focus of his next story. So, we’ll see where his research leads him next, and taking a step back with his budget gives him a project that may lead to fewer grey hairs.
Once Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness was banned to release in Saudi Arabia, it was only a question of time before other countries would follow suit. IMAX Egypt took to its official Twitter account to announce that the screenings for the Doctor Strange sequel have been canceled in the country. While no explicit reason is stated, it’s very likely due to the fact that Marvel Studios refuses to remove LGBTQ elements. Xochitl Gomez will play the character of America Chavez, who has been openly gay in the comics.
Currently, the film is banned in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar but the United Arab Emirates is still seemingly open to showcasing the film. Even Eteranls, which also included an openly LGBTQ character, was released on the market. These two films refused to adapt their offerings and are some of the few films moving away from this trend. Warner Bros. still removed LGBTQ scenes for the Chinese release of Fantastic Beast: the Secrets of Dumbledore. claiming it won’t change the film’s score, which adds some questionable aspects about how these story elements are so easily removed.
It’s not been easy for LGBTQ representation worldwide, and there are still markets where these discussions aren’t at a stage that one might expect. As Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is currently sticking to its guns, we will also very unlikely see the film release in China, which hasn’t let in any of the last few Marvel films. It’s great to see the film stick to its guns and not adapt its film to just add to its box office worldwide. We’ll see just how big the film might end up being though, as it currently is doing quite well in its presales.
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