Tag: Movie News

‘Multiverse of Madness’ Writer Says Illuminati Inclusion Was Not “Fan Service”

Even by Marvel Studios standards, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness was a film marked by secrecy up until its release. The multiversal nature of the movie led to plenty of rumors and speculations ahead of the release. Many fans expected or hoped for a large number of cameos from various Marvel properties that did not actually happen. Since the film’s release, fans have debated whether or not the lack of some “fan service” that many expected was helpful or detrimental to the Doctor Strange sequel.

Multiverse of Madness writer Michael Waldron has weighed in on the discussion. In an interview with ComicBook.com, Waldron was asked whether there was pressure to include that type of “fan service” in the film. The writer said there was some pressure but that the movie’s creators were never interested in the “cheap cheer”:

It’s easy to be seduced by the cheap laugh, the cheap cheer, whatever. But that’s never what Marvel or Sam [Raimi] were interested in. It was always about what’s right for the story, what’s right for Steven Strange, what’s right for Wanda. It was never about fan service, really. It was like, ‘If these Illuminati characters are here, they should be here because that’s who’s in the Illuminati in the comics, and that’s who would actually be in the Illuminati.’ That was our north star.
Michael Waldron

In Multiverse of Madness, the Illuminati and the overall sequence that involved them were one of the most memorable (and cheer-inducing) moments of the film. The group contained several exciting characters for fans. Hayley Atwell’s Captain Carter, Lashana Lynch’s Captain Marvel, Patrick Stewart’s Charles Xavier, John Krasinski’s Reed Richards, and Anson Mount’s Black Bolt joined Chiwetel Ejiofor’s variant Baron Mordo to form the now-violently-deceased organization. As many noticed, though, their roles were significantly greater than cameos. Waldron seems to confirm the importance of the Illuminati to the story of the Doctor Strange sequel instead of merely fan service to excite MCU and Marvel comics fans.

Audiences can judge the Illuminati themselves as Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is now playing in theaters worldwide.

Source: Comicbook.com

May 13, 2022
‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness’ Officially Passes $550M in Box Office Revenue

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness continues to be the king of the box office in passing $550 million in global revenue in its first nine days. This includes the additional $19.2 million added yesterday globally. The only film this week that has put at least a partial dent in terms of revenue was Universal’s remake of the Stephen King novel Firestarter, which raked in $375,000 in its Thursday previews yesterday.

Sam Raimi’s return to the superhero genre debuted last weekend to a dominating $185 million globally, and officially became the 11th highest domestic opening of all-time. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness has already become the strongest launch of 2022 thus far and is the second biggest opening since the pandemic, only behind the most previous entry of the Marvel Cinematic Universe in Spider-Man: No Way Home.

Some within the industry had questions about the long-term sustainability of this film at the box office, mainly due to the horror elements and how deeply entrenched it is in the lore of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Though with it remaining one of the only marquee releases currently, the Benedict Cumberbatch-led sequel has proven any potential doubters wrong with the massive financial success through just over a week. The big questions moving forward will be how long Doctor Strange 2 will hold as the king of the box office.

There doesn’t appear to be any major blockbusters standing in its way until May 27 with the release of Top Gun: Maverick, followed by Jurassic World Dominion on June 10. With that in mind, one can expect to see Doctor Strange in the Multiverse continue to dominate the box office for the time being on its road to potentially $1 billion globally and being the most financially successful film of the year overall.

Source: Variety

May 13, 2022
Tyler Hoechlin Returns for ‘Teen Wolf’ Movie

After initially holding out, Tyler Hoechlin has closed a deal to star in the Teen Wolf movie.

The revival movie, which is currently in production, will see Hoechlin reprise his role as Derek Hale. The actor, who starred in the MTV series, was one of the few stars not confirmed to return during the initial cast announcement along with Dylan O’Brien and Arden Cho. While it is unclear why Hoechlin held out on signing on, Cho opted not to return due to salary differences. As for O’Brien, the young actor confirmed he decided not to return as he felt his character’s story ended on a good note in the series.

Other confirmed cast members returning for the revival film are Tyler Posey, Holland Roden, Shelley Hennig, Crystal Reed, Orny Adams, Linden Ashby, JR Bourne, Colton Haynes, Ryan Kelley, Melissa Ponzio, Ian Bohen, Vince Mattis, Nobi Nakanishi, Khylin Rhambo, Amy Workman and Dylan Sprayberry. More names are expected to be announced soon.

The revival film, titled Teen Wolf the Movie, will air exclusively on Paramount+. Series creator Jeff Davis returns to write and produce the film, which will see the “wolves howl once again due to a terrifying evil in Beacon Hills.” As of now, no premiere date has been set for the movie.

Hoechlin currently stars in Superman & Lois for the CW, which is confirmed to return for a third season.

Source: THR.

May 13, 2022
The Star of 1994’s ‘The Fantastic Four’ Comments on John Krasinski as Reed Richards

There’s a new Reed Richards on the scene, and the original Mr. Fantastic has thoughts. Alex Hyde-White was the first person to play the patriarch of Marvel’s First Family in live-action, even if most people don’t remember. He portrayed the character in the unreleased 1994 adaptation The Fantastic Four, famously produced with a very low-budget by Roger Corman. Unfortunately, after the movie failed to hit theaters, his career as a big screen superhero became more of a trivia piece than the foundation for Richards’ cinematic legacy.

No need to worry though, as Hyde-White is still getting plenty of work, and he’s still just as big a fan of Marvel as he was thirty years ago. Sitting down with The Hollywood Reporter to discuss his fantastic past, the upcoming Nope star was asked directly about John Krasinski’s surprise appearance as the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s new Reed. He couldn’t be more pleased:

Well, that’s not a surprise. He’s been rumored for a while. It’s exciting! He’s proved himself to be a heck of a storyteller and as a lead actor and a producer and director. Krasinski is a force to be reckoned with because he has a joy of storytelling, and he’s a good leader. Those are Reed Richards’ characteristics… If you were to send out a casting spec for Reed Richards, you would say “Excellent leader, control freak — but nice about it. Collaborator willing to take the blame.”
Alex Hyde-White

While it remains to be seen whether or not Krasinski becomes the 616 Reed, his cameo in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness was a nice surprise for those eager to see him in the role. Until Marvel’s first family is cast, fans can take solace in knowing they’ll (finally) be joining the MCU soon.

Source: THR.

May 13, 2022
EXCLUSIVE: ‘Doctor Strange 2’ Writer on Sam Raimi’s Influence on the Script

The one thing reviews seem to agree on is that Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is that it is definitely a Sam Raimi film. Yet, the director has often spoken of the collaborative effort that is working with Marvel Studios, especially on bringing the script to life together with Loki writer Michael Waldron. In an exclusive interview with Murphys Multiverse, he talked about how that creative process was and just how much input Raimi had on the film’s script.

We were just sharing a brain, it felt like by the end of it because we worked so closely through such a weird, challenging time. And I was always trying to write through the lens of this being a Sam Raimi film. When I wrote Dead Strange and Strange possessing his own corpse, it looked exactly what I hoped it would look, in a Sam-type way.
Michael Waldron

It definitely seems like he had a big part in writing the script while Waldron tried to stay true to how he would generally tackle a project. You can see many dialogue choices felt quite at home in a film he would direct, some even paying homage to his time with Spider-Man, Evil Dead, and so many more. It also turns out that the Deadites-inspired Demonic Souls that are turned into Dead Strange’s cape in the finale were the director’s idea.

The demonic souls, that was all Sam’s idea […] that was Sam pitching that back to me and saying: ‘Could we do this?’ and we building some logical scaffolding to make this really cool thing he wanted to do. That. was a great example of how we both worked to realize one another’s ideas. Ultimately, because it is Sam Raimi and he’s one of the greatest directors to ever do it, I just felt so confident, I felt like I could write anything because he would make it look amazing.
Michael Waldron

That moment definitely felt like a creative decision by him, and it’s great how Waldron highlights their collaborative effort pushed the boundaries of how these ideas came together. He definitely added his unique visual style to the film and added a flair that hopefully, Marvel Studios will revisit, as the director has openly stated he would love to return for more in the future.

May 13, 2022
EXCLUSIVE: ‘Doctor Strange 2’s Michael Waldron on the “Symbiotic Nature” of Movies and Scoop Culture

We’ve entered a new era filled to the brim with leaks and spoilers hitting the web ahead of any project’s official release. Marvel Studios’ films and Disney+ shows are seemingly hit extremely often, as entire screenshots find their way online right before a film releases. Many sites also dabble in the world of running scoops on whatever the new hottest commodity is in the latest entry.

In an interview with Murphy’s Multiverse, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness writer Michael Waldron has shared his thoughts on this new “scoop culture” and what it also means for those surfing the web looking to find out what their most-anticipated project might be working on behind the scenes and how Marvel Studios’ famed secrecy has created a very interesting internet culture.

I like the idea it can mythologize otherwise. I have so much respect for what you do, for what everybody, all the fan sites do, because that was the shit that I grew up reading. I’m such a child of Coming Attractions by Corona, Ain’t It Cool News. That stuff is probably a big reason why I’m a writer. The scoop culture, to some extent, I’m like great, that’s part of it. I think that it’s our job…we want to preserve these secrets because it just makes a better experience in the theater for the audience. You’re going to get a better POP from the audience if they don’t know what’s coming.
Michael Waldron

Though he also highlights one aspect that is commonly forgotten on the web, and that is most cinema-goers have no idea about the many spoilers hitting the web. As he points out, those that actively search for it are the ones to get it spoiled the most, especially when stories are dropped

But I think it’s also…you can really if you spend a lot of time online, you can come to think that if something is spoiled on a corner of the internet that suddenly the whole world knows. But they don’t. It’s the people who are actively seeking that out and who want to find that stuff. And if they want to find it out, that means it’s probably going to enhance their enjoyment of the movie.
Michael Waldron

He also highlights that his biggest concern is if this kind of news hits bigger outlets that would spoil it for the general audience that typically isn’t on the Internet frequently and only finds out through official trailers if they include any references.

And the people who don’t wanna find out, probably aren’t. It’s like, I would be mad if it headlines news on CNN about who was in the Illuminati, but it’s not. There’s [a] spoiler warning and you know where you’re going if you go to a spoiler website. It’s like it’s what we do. It’s like the symbiotic nature of this stuff and it just builds anticipation and excitement. I think it’s cool.
Michael Waldron

It’s definitely great to get some insight into the perspective of the modern scoop culture from the perspective of someone working on these projects. As he highlights, the internet is a very different beast and there is certain anticipation if storylines or elements are teased early on.

May 13, 2022
EXCLUSIVE: Michael Waldron on Making The Illuminati Interesting in ‘Multiverse of Madness’

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness delivered what’s probably the most talked-about second act in the history of the MCU. As Doctor Strange and America Chavez went on their crazy multiversal journey, they found themselves prisoners of a team of power players from Earth-838 known as the Illuminati.

Marvel Studios has been rumored to be looking into developing a project around the Illuminati, which were created by Brian Michael Bendis in 2005, and that may still happen, but the Strange sequel introduced fans to them and then proceeded to have them systematically slaughtered by the Scarlet Witch.

Multiverse of Madness is a very different movie from the one that Marvel Studios set out to make when it was announced that Scott Derrickson, who directed 2016’s Doctor Strange, was returning to helm the sequel. When Derrickson and Marvel Studios amicably parted way, Kevin Feige turned to Loki head writer Michael Waldron to begin work on a new script. Waldron was quickly joined by Sam Raimi and the two embarked on a creative journey that was full of COVID delays and some much-discussed reshoots and additional photography. With so much time for the film to grow and evolve, I was curious if the Illuminati were always a part of the pitch, or if they were added later on. Here’s what Waldron had to say:

That came in the very first draft when we started over from scratch, what became the movie, they were in the first draft of that. They weren’t even in the outline, I think as I said. It was just me sitting in my living room…me feeling bored by my own second act.
Michael Waldron

Waldron went on to explain how his time on Rick and Morty helped shape the second act, which he described as where the movie “gets drunk”:

In Rick and Morty, Mike McMahon created Star Trek: Lower Decks, Solar Opposites…he was the showrunner on the season I wrote for. He coined a term, the “duck bill”, where it’s like the story circle, Dan Harmon’s story circle, but around like 7 or 8 o’clock on that story circle, we always try to do a duck bill, where it’s like the story doesn’t just proceed linearly or in a regular curvature way, it actually duck bills out and it’s like the movie gets drunk and that’s what it felt like we needed at that point and somehow it stayed in there the whole way. It’s a testament to Kevin, who got behind the idea and thought it would be cool, and Sam and our DP John Matheson and our editors.
Michael Waldron

For Waldron and Raimi, the second act couldn’t just be a cameo fest where some of Marvel’s most powerful characters came together to wave at the camera. So the creative team went to work:

It is ultimately a guy standing opposite several stationary characters. It takes a master of the camera like Sam to make that visually dynamic. Sam was always like, “I know the audience is gonna be excited to see these people but it can’t just be boring exposition. We’ve gotta figure out a way to make it visually dynamic.” And so they pushed me and we all pushed each other to make sure the scene was there for a reason.
Michael Waldron

With so much time between the first draft and the last day of additional photography, it was reasonable to assume that the final team, composed of Reed Richards, Black Bolt, Captain Carter, Captain Marvel, Mordo, and Charles Xavier, might not have been the original “dream team” pitched by Waldron. In fact, there were all kinds of wild rumors about who might be on the team with anyone from Balder to Magneto rumored at one time or another. When asked specifically about those two, Waldron gave a careful response, saying “There were lots of names discussed is all I’ll say.” Maybe those characters and more will show up down the road in another universe’s Illuminati.

May 13, 2022
Dan Stevens set to Star in ‘Godzilla vs. Kong’ Sequel

It has officially been announced that Dan Stevens is set to star in the upcoming sequel of 2021’s blockbuster film Godzilla vs. Kong. Director Adam Wingard is set to return to direct the follow-up project, marking a reunion between director and actor after working together on The Guest. The 2014 independent thriller gave Stevens and Wingard some of their strongest reviews and put both of them on the board as people who could play roles in more major franchises down the road. The Monsterverse sequel is one of the first major tentpole film roles for Stevens, who has generally been very selective in the roles he accepts. The actor most recently has portrayed John Dean, the Nixon-era White House Counsel, in the series Gaslit on Starz.

The sequel to Godzilla vs. Kong continues Legendary’s financially successful Monsterverse franchise. The original film released in 2021 was the first film post-pandemic to earn over $100M at the box office domestically and ultimately grossed $468M globally. While minimal details are known about the new film, audiences should certainly anticipate a return of both iconically monstrous figures as they engage in another world-shattering war. Production led by Adam Wingard is set to commence in Australia later this summer. It will certainly be interesting to follow further developments for the Monsterverse as more from this film is announced.

Godzilla vs. Kong 2 does not yet have a release date, but it is thought to hit theaters sometime in 2024.

Source: Deadline

May 12, 2022
‘This is Spinal Tap’ Sequel in Development, Original Cast Set to Return

It’s time to crank it all the way up to 11, as Spinal Tap is getting a sequel. Deadline has broken the news as Michael McKean, Rob Reiner, Harry Shearer, and Christopher Guest are back to revive the classic mockumentary. It’ll be the first project for the newly revived film division Castle Rock Entertainment. Reiner is once again returning in the director’s chair and will play Marty DiBergi once again, as he makes a new mockumentary on McKean‘s David St. Hubbins, Shearer‘s Derek Smalls, and Guest‘s Nigel Tufnel, who are known as England’s sauciest heavy metal band.

In an interview with Deadline, Reiner talked about how their goal is to have the sequel release on the 40th anniversary of the original.

The plan is to do a sequel that comes out on the 40th anniversary of the original film and I can tell you hardly a day goes by without someone saying, why don’t you do another one? For so many years, we said, ‘nah.’ It wasn’t until we came up with the right idea how to do this. You don’t want to just do it, to do it. You want to honor the first one and push it a little further with the story.
Rob Reiner

This announcement is hot off the heels of the original returning to the Cannes Film Festival, as part of the Cinema de la Plage sidebar. The original was a critical darling when it was released in 1984 and would eventually be deemed “culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant” according to the Library of Congress before it was preserved by the National Film Registry. So, we’ll see if the sequel manages to keep that spirit alive.

Source: Deadline

May 12, 2022
‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness’ Musical Battle Was Created in Reshoots

Reshoots is a dirty word among fans in this business. The general consensus is that when reshoots occur during a big-budget production, it’s a sign that everything is a total mess behind-the-scenes and fires need to be put out. While that is the case in certain situations, most of the time it’s a standard byproduct of the production pipeline. Oftentimes, it’s when a lot of unexpected magic happens as filmmakers have a better perspective of their movie now that they’ve seen it on the cutting room floor.

Case in point, the reshoots of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness birthed the astounding musical fight scene between two Stranges fighting for the Darkhold. Fandom.com spoke with Danny Elfman who revealed that the scene was conceptualized during reshoots:

Whereas the musical battle was very late in the game, and Sam was returning to England to shoot a second time. He says, ‘I’ve got this idea,’ and he’s describing it to me. And I said, ‘Sam, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.’ And he’s like, ‘Don’t worry, don’t worry, you’ll see it, you’ll see.’
Danny Elfman

That particular showdown is undeniably one of the most exciting fight sequences the MCU has ever had. It’s a fight scene that harkens back to the fantastical days of Disney in Fantasia as well as the audacious mindbending journeys of Doctor Strange in the Silver Age. It’s also surprising to learn that the idea wasn’t necessarily from Elfman but from director Sam Raimi himself. Regardless, the scene is a great encapsulation of Raimi’s creative relationship with Elfman, which goes back decades.

Source: Fandom

May 12, 2022