Murphy's Multiverse

Tag: Movies

  • ‘TMNT: Mutant Mayhem’ Spinoff Series and Sequel Already in Development

    ‘TMNT: Mutant Mayhem’ Spinoff Series and Sequel Already in Development

    There’s just something about those Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that lets the franchise constantly reinvent itself, but still remain a strong IP for children of any generation. A brand new film is on the horizon titled Mutant Mayhem, which will be the first to feature actual teenagers in the leading role. Now, it seems that before the film even released in theaters, Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies are ready to start a brand new franchise.

    A new spinoff series has now been confirmed, the first hinted by Cinelinx. The series will be titled Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and will appear on Paramount+. It seems that they already mapped out a two-season release and it’ll bridge the story between the first and its confirmed sequel. Jeff Rowe will return to write and direct the sequel.

    Turtle veteran Alan Wan and Chris Yost will serve as the showrunners on the new Paramount+ series. Lukas Williams will be overseeing these projects as well. The main cast is expected to return and it’s unclear if we can also expect the exact same art style given a series’ smaller budget and longer runtime. Though, it seems very likely that they’ll try to keep it consistent between them.

    Source: Cinelinx

  • Sony Pushes Back its Fall Slate Instead of Paying Writers and Actors Fairly

    Sony Pushes Back its Fall Slate Instead of Paying Writers and Actors Fairly

    It seems like Sony is the first to cave. Hollywood is currently going through one of its most significant strikes as the WGA and SAG-AFTRA have decided to strike as no fair deal was made by any of the studios to make their life actually livable. Now, the trend continues as instead of coming back to the table to discuss the industry’s future, it seems Sony has decided to push back the major releases of their fall schedule.

    The big push comes with Kraven the Hunter, which has now shifted to a release on August 30th of 2024, which was initially set to release this October. It seems they were mostly banking on Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s press tour to push the film; uncertain if that would actually help their next Spider-Man spinoff without the webhead’s involvement. Surprisingly, Madame Web is getting released two days earlier on Valentine’s Day of 2024.

    That’s not all, as the Ghostbusters: Afterlife sequel has also been pushed further back to March 29th of 2024. It initially was going to have a Christmas release and had the lesser push even with the hope to wait it out until Paul Rudd is able to promote the project once the strike ends. They also postponed the Karate Kid reboot that was going to release in June next year to a December release.

    There are also some films that have now ended up in limbo. Blumhouse’s They Listen lost its August release date from next year. Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse has lost its March release, which was hinted at when reports pointed to a troubled production (even if the released film is quite a visual feast). Though, they surprisingly gave Venom 3 a release date, as it stopped production during the strike, as the film is slated for July 12th while Bad Boys 4 will release on June 14th. Gran Turismo is still set for its August release.

    Source: Variety

  • ‘Blue Beetle’ Early Projections Heading for a $17M Opening Weekend

    ‘Blue Beetle’ Early Projections Heading for a $17M Opening Weekend

    Yeah, you read that right. Things are not looking good for Blue Beetle. The next installment in the DC(E)U is only a few weeks away from hitting theaters. yet, there’s a noticeable lack in marketing for the latest addition that’ll explore the story of young Jamie Reyes as he becomes the iconic hero. Sadly, Warner Bros. Discovery is not going all out to market the film and the fangs of The Flash’s slip is showing.

    Superhero films have become a dime a dozen, so audiences (especially this year) are more selective about what they want to watch and what not. It’s why we had a surprisingly brutal summer box office with very few real “winners” out there. While some films are managing to leg out, it’s not really rosy for the “big return” of the summer box office.

    As such, the film is currently projected to open to $12M to $17M. Yes, that is what it’ll likely make over its entire opening weekend with a total range not going any higher than $55M. While we don’t know the budget of the film, it’s still a worse performance than Shazam! Fury of the Gods earlier this year.

    While some talk a lot about superhero fatigue, it’s just a blockbuster fatigue overall and people are more selective on what they watch in theaters. Prices are skyrocketing so the expectation on what a film can do is higher than ever before. Blue Beetle was barely marketed and the last two DC films fell flat on their noses. So, it’s just looking like people don’t truly trust the brand enough for it to be worth their money.

    Source: BoxOffice Pro

  • ‘Aquaman’ Sequel’ Third Reshoots Scrap All Batman Cameo

    ‘Aquaman’ Sequel’ Third Reshoots Scrap All Batman Cameo

    Does Warner Bros. have another The Flash on their hands? The last time the production studio was all-in on a DC Studios project from the former era did not end as they hoped. After becoming one of the biggest bombs of the studio’s 100-year history, even performing worse than Green Lantern, they are quite nervous that the next project sticks the landing. While there is little advertising going around for Blue Beetle, which is set to release in only a few weeks, Warner Bros. may once again be too focused on the future.

    Their next big hope is the release of James Wan’s Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, which is riding on the potential of the first film’s $1 billion holiday release. The only issue is that the film is seemingly sinking in one way or another. The film has undergone three reshoots by now, which is not something you normally want to hear about a film. One or two reshoots are pretty common nowadays, but the problem seems to stem from the film going through countless test screenings.

    During one round, the new Warner film heads, Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy, got involved; the latter got involved in the editing process. That led to the film scoring even lower and ended up going through another round of reshoots. Supposedly, the story clarity is an issue for viewers of The Lost Kingdom. Plus, now one can add the fact that the second reshoots including Ben Affleck, who was set to replace Michael Keaton’s character after his originally planned return at the end of The Flash, is now also scrapped by DC heads James Gunn and Peter Safran.

    They are pointing to the overworked visual effects houses as one reason, but they have affected many other films ever since the pandemic started. It seems like too many cooks were involved and the film has likely gone even further over its initially planned budget of $205M. So, the film would have to do a lot of heavy lifting to make its money back. Oddly, Black Adam remains the highest earner at the box office for DC since the pandemic started and Dwayne Johnson may have held is promise after all.

    Source: The Hollywood Reporter

  • ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3’ Coming to Disney Plus Next Month

    ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3’ Coming to Disney Plus Next Month

    Just three months after it opened in theaters, Marvel Studios’ Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 will land on Disney Plus on August 2nd. The film, which opened in theaters on May 5th, was director James Gunn’s final project for the studio before moving on to co-chair DC Studios and was received fairly well by critics, including our own Michael T. Ford III.

    After opting for short, 45ish-day theatrical runs for many of their MCU films, Disney has opted for longer windows with their more recent films before streaming them on D+. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever hit the streaming service 82 days after release and fans waited 89 days before being able to stream Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania which is the same number of days it will have been when Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 arrives on Disney Plus.

    After a rough stretch of Phase 4 and 5 films that included Thor: Love and Thunder and the aforementioned Quantumania, Vol. 3 was largely a return to form for Marvel Studios. Though it was a darker entry than either of its predecessors within the franchise, the film delivered one of the MCU’s most detestable villains in recent memory while giving some of the MCU’s most beloved heroes satisfying conclusions to their character arcs while also leaving room for them to return. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is now available to buy on digital platforms.

  • ‘Mission Impossible 7’ Opens Softly Domestically But Makes Up for it Internationally

    ‘Mission Impossible 7’ Opens Softly Domestically But Makes Up for it Internationally

    2023 remains a rough year for entertainment, while writers and actors are fighting for their livelihood, it looks like people just aren’t that big into going to the movie theaters anymore, or at least not as frequent. If not even Tom Cruise can bring in the audience after last year’s mega release of Top Gun: Maverick, it may be a bigger showcase of just how rough this year has been.

    Mission Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One has opened at the top of the box office this weekend, but managed to pull in a soft $56.2M over three days. It did have the benefit of a five-day opening and managed to push forward towards around $80M, it’s still a far shot from the initial $90M that was expected from Cruise’s star power. Perhaps Maverick was more about the adrenaline than what he was cooking up.

    Ticket sales are behind 2018’s Fallout, which still is the highest-grossing of the franchise, and even behind Mission Impossible II released in 2000. Though, the five-day total is higher than the first and it does have a strong A CinemaScore which will likely give it some good legs moving forward. Though competition is stiff at the moment with Barbie and Oppenheimer likely to bite into it.

    The issue, a common one by now, is that it has a similar price tag to Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny at around $300M. While it has a bit more staying power given stronger reception and audience score, it’s still an uphill battle either way. The starts and stops of COVID are being highlighted as one major issue as to why its budget increased as it did. Though one could also argue the same for most productions releasing now that faced COVID limitations and ballooning budgets, but there hasn’t been much reporting on those cases oddly until now.

    The film did, however, makeup with its release internationally at around $155M. Though China remains the same weak box office release as it has with other productions since they allowed Western productions back in. The rest of the weekend was rounded up with other recent releases. Indiana Jones passed $302M globally while Insidious: The Red Door is showing some good holds. Even Elemental managed to pass the $300M mark and stands proud at $311.7M.

    Source: Variety

  • Disney CEO Claims Pixar Had “Some Creative Misses” and Reflects on Disney+ Impact

    Disney CEO Claims Pixar Had “Some Creative Misses” and Reflects on Disney+ Impact

    It’s been a wacky day. SAG is officially entering a strike alongside the WGA while Bob Iger seemingly decides to shift the blame to a cracking industry on the people desperately keeping it alive. With millions to spare, he seemingly decides to take some wild swings in a recent interview by not only blaming the current situation on those trying to survive but even hitting into his own company.

    Disney isn’t perfect and has had some rough patches throughout the years, but they have developed two golden geese: Pixar and Marvel. They had the kind of bankability any franchise still dreams of, especially direct rivals like DC. Yet, the last few years have been rough on the industry and they made some big steps to grow their streaming business.

    Now that the pandemic is seemingly done and behind us, they are back peddling their original plan and trying to become theatrical giants once more. While they proved to still be the most consistent up until now, Bob Iger decides to downplay Pixar’s creative output as “creative misses” while knowingly highlighting that their streaming releases of these iconic films slowed down their box office prowess.

    There were three Pixar releases in a row that went direct to streaming, in part because of — mostly because of COVID. And I think that may have created an expectation in the audience that they’re going to eventually be on streaming and probably quickly, and there wasn’t an urgency. And then I think there was some, I think you’d have to agree that there were some creative misses, as well.

    Bob Iger

    While he seemingly ignores this part when discussing their Marvel releases, it’s bizarre to see him downplay the value of projects like Luca, Turning Red, and even Elemental. We don’t know what projects he’s talking about specifically, but it sounds a lot like a justification for why they went to streaming only with their projects. It almost feels like a way to save face without doing so. It’s a darn shame that this is how the hard-working animators are treated by their own studio head after being a strong part of its legacy for years.

    Source: Variety

  • Haley Atwell Didn’t Love Captain Carter’s ‘Multiverse of Madness’ Role

    Haley Atwell Didn’t Love Captain Carter’s ‘Multiverse of Madness’ Role

    “I can do this all day.” For fans of the MCU, hearing alt-universe Peggy Carter utter one of Steve Rogers’ most memorable lines in her brief appearance in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness was a react-out-loud moment. Haley Atwell, who first brought Peggy to life in Captain America: The First Avenger, also recently reacted out loud…except her reaction wasn’t as positive as most in the theater.

    In an interview with EW, Atwell described Carter’s appearance in Multiverse of Madness as “a frustrating moment.” Atwell, whose latest film, Mission: Impossible-Dead Reckoning Part One, just hit theaters explained that the brief appearance in the Doctor Strange sequel was not her cup of tea. “I’m like, ‘That wasn’t my choice! When she was like, ‘I could do this all day’ and then followed by she’s immediately cut in half by a frisbee,” said Atwell. “And the audience being like, ‘She can’t do it all day. Apparently you can’t, so, egg on your face.’ That doesn’t really serve Peggy very well.“

    Of course that Peggy isn’t THE Peggy, something Atwell certainly knows after having voiced another, other alternate version of the character in Marvel Studios’ first canonical animated adventure, What If…?. According to Atwell, her experience with that project was a little more enjoyable. “I felt like I had much more to do in the What If…? animation series,” explained Atwell. “I mean, any actor will tell you, to be able to go into a booth in effectively your pajamas and do an animation is great fun because you’re focused on the voice as the instrument and your main performative tool.“

    With another season of What If…? still on the slate for Marvel Studios and plenty of other adventures left to go in the Multiverse Saga, there will likely be plenty of chances for Atwell to reprise the role of Peggy Carter. Given she’s voiced her displeasure with the particularly bad case of being cut in half the character experienced in Multiverse of Madness, it seems likely her next role will be more well-rounded.

    Source: EW

  • First ‘The Marvels’ Funkos Include Goose, Captain Marvel, and More

    First ‘The Marvels’ Funkos Include Goose, Captain Marvel, and More

    It looks like Funko Pops for the next Marvel Cinematic Universe entry is slowly finding its way online. While we still have some time before The Marvels‘ releases in theaters this November, it looks like a sneak peek of what’s to come has surfaced online. To be fair, these don’t include anything majorly new that wasn’t already hinted at in the trailer, but it’s definitely interesting to get a bit more from the project.

    As shared on Instagram by IG account funkochaseryeg, a new box set is unveiled that includes a Pop figure of Captain Marvel in her binary form. Not just that, but it also confirms that the kittens we saw in the trailer are indeed the children of Goose, who will definitely leave chaos in their wake; never double-cross a Flerken kitten. The box also includes Ms. Marvel and Photon Funkos.

    Goose seems quite dominant as part of the merch push, but that’s not too surprising. The feline was a standout in the first Captain Marvel movie and has been highly anticipated to return to the franchise since he puked out the Cosmic Cube. It’ll be interesting to see how they will explore the storyline with the kittens and if perhaps Goose has a surprisingly more active role in the film moving forward.

    Source: Twitter

  • ‘Indiana Jones 5’ Holds On as the New ‘Insidious’ Takes the Top Spot

    ‘Indiana Jones 5’ Holds On as the New ‘Insidious’ Takes the Top Spot

    That B+ AudienceScore is showing its fangs, as Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny has slipped to the second spot in its second weekend. While not every blockbuster needs to hold on to the top spot, the film simply had a disappointing $60M opening with a $295M production budget. It would need to make at least around $800M to make its money box, and it’ll need to leg out to make back its money.

    Though, while some are calling this a bad slip, it still dropped “only” 56% from its opening weekend. Putting that into perspective with The Flash opening to a $55M but slipping by 72% with a similar rating shows that Indiana Jones at least has some staying power moving forward. Though it also has quite a bit of competition that might bring that hold to a quick end potentially, it drop still could’ve been better which may be why the reactions are surfacing as they are.

    The big winner of the weekend was Insidious‘ return with a $31.4M opening weekend, which is slightly beyond the initial expectations. Insidious: The Red Door was created with only $16M when compared to other films and has shown a curious twist of smaller budgets making up for bigger blockbuster releases. Though, horror moviegoers remain committed while the general audience is a bit more cautious at the moment.

    Joy Ride is the other major release of the weekend that opened with $5.85M. While many are pointing to “smaller budget means more money,” it does seem like that isn’t always the case. The irony is also that the original small-budget release is trailing behind while the IP-focused entry is the one making money. So, we’re just seeing the usual blockbuster developments on a smaller scale than usual.

    Source: Variety, The Wrap