Murphy's Multiverse

Author: Joseph Aberl

  • Tom Holland “Engaging in Conversations” on Fourth ‘Spider-Man’ Film

    Tom Holland “Engaging in Conversations” on Fourth ‘Spider-Man’ Film

    We’ve all been waiting for the update on when we can expect an update on the fourth entry in Tom Holland’s Spider-Man franchise. As much as everyone is discussing the current status of Marvel Studios, there’s still hope to further build upon the rather melancholic ending that Spider-Man: No Way Home left us with. It seemed like the perfect time for Spider-Man to return back to basics.

    Yet, it seems Tom Holland isn’t quite on board. This would mark the first actor to get a fourth live-action entry and it seems he wants to make sure they do it quite right, as he feels “very protective” of this iconic Marvel franchise and character. It’s fitting and hopefully, we’ll get more updates as time goes by, but in an interview, he highlights that he’s “actively engaging in conversations” on the fourth entry.

    All I can say is that we have been actively engaging in conversations about what it could potentially look like for a fourth rendition of my character. Whether or not we can find a way to do justice to the character is another thing. I feel very protective over Spider-Man. I feel very, very lucky that we were able to work on a franchise that got better with each movie, that got more successful with each movie, which I think is really rare, and I want to protect his legacy. So, I won’t make another one for the sake of making another one. It will have to be worth the while of the character.

    Tom Holland

    Of course, there’s the likelihood that he’s already signed on and just highlighting how much he cares about the project, as they are trying to make sure they find their way moving forward. There are rumors that they might not fully remove the character from the multiverse saga though the hints have been for a more grounded storyline. Though, perhaps it’s simply a post-credit tie-in forced upon by Sony given that they don’t want to lose the contract again. Still, we’ll see once they start hinting at the next entry moving forward.

    Source: Collider

  • ‘The Boys’ Getting Spin-Off from ‘Blue Beetle’ Writer

    There’s a fun irony to see The Boys series slowly turn into exactly what it mocked in its earliest seasons. The series created by Eric Kripke explored a dark and twisted take on superheroes that is steeped deeply in American politics and consumerism. It was the “gotcha” of its time as an anti-movement towards the more light-hearted fun the superheroes on the silver screen offered by mocking its foundations as a franchise-building, marketable product.

    The Boys is now set to get its third spinoff series, The Boys: Mexico. The offshoot will be developed by Blue Beetle writer Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer, who is seemingly actively looking for a co-showrunner to join the project. The project has not started casting and is set to film in Latin America. This marks another expansion of the Boys-verse after the recent release of Gen V and the animated spinoff Diabolical, which were both steeped in the R-rating of the original.

    The series is also going to be executive produced by Andor’s Diego Luna and Werewolf by Night’s Gale García Bernal, who is also interested in potentially having a minor role of some kind in the series, though it’s not yet set in stone. It’ll likely further explore another venture by Vought into expanding its superheroes across the world, or perhaps be a series that echoes the normal man vs. the superheroes that we see in the main The Boys series. We’ll have to wait a bit until we get more info on the series as Gen V is also set to get a second season.

    Source: Deadline

  • Iman Vellani Teases Ms. Marvel’s Role in ‘Marvel Zombies’

    Iman Vellani Teases Ms. Marvel’s Role in ‘Marvel Zombies’

    Iman Vellani is slowly becoming the face of Marvel Studios’ iconic franchise. Robert Downey Jr. held that mantle for a long time and any inclusion of him in a film was a big selling point and if she keeps it up, she is slowly building up that role. She just recently appeared in The Marvels and while her next major live-action appearance is uncertain, she does have an animated project on the horizon.

    We still don’t know when we can expect it to release but Marvel Zombies is one of the next animated features set to release. First teases hinted at the same animation style as What If and highlighted it’s likely a unique what-if scenario from the mainline Marvel Cinematic Universe. In an interview with The Direct, Vellani reveals that not only did she already finish her work on the project but Kamala Khan will have a major role in it.

    We’ve done the whole thing. It was amazing. It was so much fun. And I love—there are a lot of cool characters in the ‘Marvel Zombies’ show. And Kamala is kind of the center of the show. They described it to me, it’s like, ‘She’s basically the Frodo of the story.’ And I was like, ‘That’s amazing.

    Iman Vellani

    She also highlights the excitement of having the character she started playing get to interact with various new characters through this animated style. Though, sadly, it seems they didn’t get a chance to record in a bigger group.

    And I get to interact and meet all these people along her journey. And, yes, they’re only the voices, and I don’t get to hear their voices in real-time. But just, it’s my fantasies, right? Like, knowing Kamala is going to interact with some really cool people, even if it’s just animation, is so special in a lot of ways.

    Iman Vellani

    So far, we know very little about Marvel Zombies which was at one point touted as the first major R-rated project by Marvel Studios. While Echo has seemingly already taken that mantle with its upcoming January release, it’s still exciting to get another hint at what’s to come and the inclusion of these actors in the animated adaptation of the beloved comic book series. Here’s hoping they might be allowed to include Ash at some point.

    Source: The Direct

  • ‘Scott Pilgrim’ Season 2 Unlikely

    ‘Scott Pilgrim’ Season 2 Unlikely

    Sadly, it seems that Netflix’s reputation is starting to lead to many creatives not even giving long-term storytelling a chance. One of the latest new additions in Scott Pilgrim Takes Off has been released on the streaming service that gives a unique spin on the iconic cult classic film and comic, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. While the ending does includes a little hint at what could happen in a second season which would be original material, the series creator hints that a sequel season is unlikely.

    In an interview with RollingStone, Bryan Lee O’Malley talked bout the anime adaptation of the series that saw the cast of the original film return to voice their characters. Even Chris Evans, Brie Larson, Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Aubrey Plaza, Kieran Culkin, and more returned but it seems they approached the project as if it was a single season to begin with.

    People are always complaining about how shows get canceled after 1 season. So we hedged our bets immediately, and tried to make a self-contained 1 season.

    Bryan Lee O’Malley

    It’s a shame as the series has style and definitely would offer some great storytelling if we had more from the show moving forward. There’s a lot about the mystical world of Canada worth exploring as Scott and Ramona Flower’s relationship gets further explored. Though there’s an ending hinting at a potential continuation, O’Malley has confirmed it was more a tongue-in-cheek reference towards post-credit sequences overall.

    Source: Rolling Stones

  • ‘Wish’ Underperforms as ‘Hunger Games’ and ‘Napoleon Surprise at the Box Office

    ‘Wish’ Underperforms as ‘Hunger Games’ and ‘Napoleon Surprise at the Box Office

    The fall box office is rough, that’s certainly sure now. Though, not for everyone. In a surprise twist, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes seemingly pulled in a stronger second weekend than expected even with a B+ CinemaScore; further adding to its validity for telling movie’s legs nowadays given Five Nights at Freddy’s had an A- and just crashed in its second weekend. However, the film was also promoted by its cast before the premiere due to getting a waiver during the strikes,w which likely gave it a bit of a boost. It added $28.8M over the weekend (a 38% drop) and generally had a $42M run over the Thanksgiving holiday.

    The Marvels‘ managed to pull in $6.4M over the weekend with $9.2M in the holidays, which is putting it on a path to be the first MCU film to make less than $100M. Still, a 37% drop after its first massive drop is a much better hold than Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’s 60% and The Flash’s 65%. If it manages to surprise and hold a bit better it could still surprise but that just depends on if Marvel Studios and Disney decided to drop it before Christmas as an early gift for subscribers (which wouldn’t be new for them). Plus it had quite a bit of competition with two new releases and the other three from last weekend. Not going to change much but still worth noting.

    The true disappointment of the weekend is, however, that Disney’s 100-year celebration release Wish only earned $35M over the weekend and pulled in $45M in the Thanksgiving timeframe. It’s miles ahead of Strange World from last year which opened to $18M, but it’s definitely not close to where Encanto was two years prior. It only opened in 27 markets overseas, which means its global tally is $49M as most of the slate this year has underperformed with very high budgets and the fall doesn’t come with that summer bonus. It does have an A- CinemaScore but glancing at Hunger Games and Five Nights at Freddy’s, who knows how valuable that really is.

    It may be a general issue with Disney+ showcasing a similar effect with Five Nights at Freddy’s second-weekend drop. If Wish faces a similar development, it showcases that audiences are going to need some time before they adjust to the new non-45-day release schedule on streaming platforms. Plus, Disney turned its own films into “wait and see” releases with its overall push into streaming. It’ll take time and focus to heal, which will likely happen but has shown its thorns in 2023; an overall detrimental year for blockbuster releases.

    The surprise was Napoleon who opened to $78.8M worldwide and had a $21M weekend opening with $32.5M over its first five days. Yet, it continues the trend of a $200M budget for a film that is massively underperforming to cover its bill similar to Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, which stands at $151M globally. The comparison with superhero flicks is commonly that those are made for all age audiences and is also a point made by Variety, but given that many point to Oppenheimer as the “cinematic revival” of long-films with R ratings doing well at the box office: the point becomes far more difficult as that film’s success is looking more and more like an exception.

    One thing continues to dominate the box office: it is struggling and while Comscore analyst Paul Dergarabedian points out that it’s doing better than the last few years and sees it as “encouraging,” it’s very likely that studios are going to avoid this timeslot moving forward if things don’t change with high-budget releases. The fall box office is looking grim overall, as even the second entry to the billion-dollar Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is going to premiere quite low and who knows if it’ll actually enjoy a holiday boost given just how volatile this year has been.

    Source: Variety Deadline, Deadline

  • ‘Aquaman’ Sequel’s Box Office Projected at $32M to $42M

    ‘Aquaman’ Sequel’s Box Office Projected at $32M to $42M

    Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom’s early projections are in and it looks like the fall box office continues to be questionable moving forward. Early projections by Box Office Pro are hinting at an opening weekend that matches the rest of the year so far, as it may open between $32M to $42M. That is quite a drop and even lower than The Marvel’s opening just a few weeks ago.

    The only difference is that Aquaman sequel has the holiday legs in its favor given it’s releasing over the Holidays. Yet, even the reliable holiday season has become questionable as Thanksgiving isn’t giving many major releases a bigger push than some were hoping to see from their newest high-budget releases like Wish and Napoleon.

    It’s starting to look like the original pre-COVID mapping of massive projects released in the fall is starting to drop. There’s not a lot of box office to gain here given recent numbers, but 2023 is generally been a detrimental box office disaster across the board. Many are pointing at the classic “superhero fatigue” but considering just how many productions have been hit, it seems like the year was just overstuffed and the price of admission was simply to high if there wasn’t a reason.

    Outside of a few exceptions (this year’s Top 10 tells you everything you need to know about 2023), the year wasn’t kind to any new release and we’ll likely see a change in how they handle it. Sony is currently dedicated to pushing out as many projects as possible while Marvel Studios took a step back. Disney has reshuffled its schedule and not much is known about the rest. So, we’ll see what the future holds.

    Source: Box Office Pro

  • ‘Red Sonja’ Writer Working on Live-Action ‘Naruto’ Film

    ‘Red Sonja’ Writer Working on Live-Action ‘Naruto’ Film

    After Netflix finally managed to pull off a live-action adaptation of the popular anime One Piece, it seems the stones are set in place for the next major attempt. Masashi Kishimoto‘s iconic Naruto franchise seems to be the next in line for an adaptation. Still, unlike the 1000+ chapter adaptation before it, this one will act as a film rather than a TV series.

    In an article by Variety, they reveal that Red Sonja writer Tasha Huo is currently working on a script for a live-action adaptation of Naruto for Lionsgate. Sadly, they don’t reveal much outside of that this is her next project, but it does sound like they might be further along now that the strikes have ended. She does share the following on her passion for adapting iconic characters:

    Adapting iconic characters or IP makes the writing of it easier, because the passion for writing it is already there. I’m so inspired by these characters already that it’s exciting to just take a part of their journey and try to tell that fun story in a way that would appeal to me as a fan.

    Tasha Huo

    Naruto is going to be quite a different beast than One Piece. Mostly due to the nature of its story being strongly focused on colorful ninjas. So, it’s not going to be a project where you can easily just westernize it, unlike Eiichiro Oda’s work which has a very diverse cast as revealed by the creator. So, it’ll be interesting to see how they pull this one off.

    Source: Variety

  • BREAKING: James Gunn Finds His Lex Luthor in Nicholas Hoult

    BREAKING: James Gunn Finds His Lex Luthor in Nicholas Hoult

    It looks like the rumors were true, as many hints dropped that Nicholas Hoult was in the running for a role in the upcoming Superman Legacy movie, which James Gunn will direct. As he took over as the newly minted co-CEO of DC Studios, he has made it his mission to re-establish the iconic comics universe with one of its most iconic heroes.

    Now, it’s been revealed that Hoult has gotten a role in the film. While he was eyed to potentially becoming Superman, the role went to David Corenswet, who’ll appear next to Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane. Yet, he has gotten an even juicier role, as the former X-Men will take on the iconic bald icon, Lex Luthor.

    It’ll be interesting to see what his approach will be to the role. The announcement also comes at a perfect time just after the SAG strike wrapped up, but it’s unclear if he may have already gotten the role before that took place. Either way, Hoult has been campaigning for a major role in a DC film for some time so it’s great to see his patience result in him becoming an iconic character like Luthor.

    Source: Deadline

  • ‘The Marvels’ Drops by 78% as ‘The Hunger Games’ Prequel Underperforms

    ‘The Marvels’ Drops by 78% as ‘The Hunger Games’ Prequel Underperforms

    It’s not looking great for the fall line-up so far. All eyes will be on The Marvels’ historic drop, which pulled in 10.2M over its second weekend. That makes a 78% drop and the highest for any Hollywood superhero film to date. That is saying a lot considering just how bad this year has been. There was hope that it might hold a bit stronger given its core audience shifted with this project, but the two new releases might’ve hurt it more than expected.

    Even with decent word-of-mouth, The Marvels had a core audience with more female and younger audiences, who showed up for two other releases this weekend. The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes was released to a tepid B+ CinemaScore and had the lowest opening for the franchise. It’s even far lower than the initial predictions at $44M after being expected with around $55M to even going beyond $60M earlier this week.

    That film skewed heavily toward females, an audience with a bigger affinity for the latest MCU release. Even Trolls Band Together with an A CinemaScore pulled in around $30.6M which is lower than the first release and isn’t breaking initial predictions. It stands at a strong $76.3M in international markets, which gives it a good boost as well.

    The Marvel‘s global is doing alright with it pulling in $19.5M and standing at $96.3M. It’s currently at $161.3M and the question will be where it lands moving forward. As of now, it might not break $100M domestically and depending on its third weekend could fall short of hitting $200M worldwide. If it does see a bit of a boost, it might make it a bit lower than The Flash earlier this year.

    It should be pointed out that The Marvels‘ drop is only slightly higher than that of Five Nights at Freddy’s not too long ago, which dropped 76% in its second weekend. That film even had an A- CinemaScore and perhaps we’ll see something similar happen to The Hunger Games next weekend. That Cost of Living Crisis is showing its fangs before the holiday season and we’ll see if any other releases in the coming month or so will manage to make up for it.

    Source: THR

  • ‘Hunger Games’ Prequel Opens to Franchise Low as ‘The Marvels’ Hits Record Low for Genre

    ‘Hunger Games’ Prequel Opens to Franchise Low as ‘The Marvels’ Hits Record Low for Genre

    Seems that the fall cinematic line-up is having a hard time picking up with even pandemic standards. We’ve seen a number of projects flounder at the box office that would’ve been surefire wins but are barely even managing to open to 50M or falling below initial projections. The only exception was the fan-frontloaded Five Nights at Freddy’s that swiftly plummeted in its second weekend.

    The same effect is hitting The Marvels which had the franchise’s lowest opening and now seemingly the lowest second weekend as well. Promotion by the cast only slowly started throughout the week, which was hopeful to give the film some room to improve a bit but it’s not seemingly working.

    Predictions saw that the new releases wouldn’t have too much of an audience overlap, but it also just seems like audiences aren’t really coming back for a second weekend this fall. If The Hunger Games prequel faces a similar drop in its second weekend with a B+ score, we might be looking at a really rough fall release schedule ahead.

    Expectations were that The Marvels from The Numbers’ prediction would land at $20,4M in its second weekend with a soft drop of 56% and their algorithms are pretty on point, as The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is heading towards their predicted $45M after many even claimed it could go as high as $60M. That would place it slightly lower than even The Marvels with the only caveat being it has a $100M price tag.

    So, it’ll be interesting to see if that second weekend drop is going to stand out or not. Even many try to put a selective positive spin on what amounts to the worst opening in The Hunger Games franchise with this opening being about a third of the original Hunger Games that opened to 152M back in 2012. The production budget is a fair point to this not being a bad opener but still oddly how different the framing is compared to last weekend.

    The Marvels opened to 2.8M on Friday, and unless it suddenly gets a pick up it’ll likely fall under $10M which could post it towards the worst second weekend after this year’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Even Eternals had a stronger hold on a B CinemaScore during the pandemic, but perhaps we’re seeing more and more the Cost of Living Crisis affect audiences’ decisions on middling word-of-mouth and an eventual streaming release.

    The only thing will be if this film ends up making $100M domestically, as of now the film could’ve either gone the same direction as Elemental and surprised with a stronger hold or ended up dropping like The Flash. Now, it’s even lower than that as it dropped around 72% in its second weekend. That means the film is likely not going to hit 100M domestically. So we could be looking at a lower than $200M box office run if the international box office sees a similar development.

    It’s even lower than BoxOffice Pro, which had it at around 16M though for The Marvels. Promotion started this week and only gave the film a bit of energy going into the weekend, but it’s definitely hard to make up for lost time that swiftly. There’s of course the hope it would make a dent and perhaps hold it going into its second weekend but we’ll have to see how the coming weeks go for the franchise.

    One thing to note as THR points out, Hunger Games and the new Trolls film both skewed heavily female and there’s a good chance that that is what took a big chunk out of the latest MCU release. It had a much stronger reception with female audiences and that would’ve been the ones to keep it going but with not one but two films released hitting that demographic, it may have been a poor placing on Disney’s part as well with decent word-of-mouth not being enough to carry it through the current prices and competition.

    Source: Variety, The Numbers, The Numbers (Hunger Games), Box Office Pro, THR