News Around the Net

I love this sizzle reel of upcoming Marvel TV shows:

 

It’s nice to see Ironheart finally make it onto the release schedule (I believe they shot that show back in 2022!!) and I’m really excited for Wonder Man.  I also have high hopes for Daredevil.  I hope they are able to capture what was great originally in the Netflix show and create something that better fits into the modern MCU.  (I also know it’s probably hopeless, but I desperately want Matt and Jen Walters to continue to cross paths!!)

Speaking of Marvel, I’m all-in on this Thunderbolts trailer:

I could watch David Harbour’s Red Guardian and Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova bicker all day!  Yes, this is derivative of DC’s Suicide Squad, but I love seeing all these characters from various Marvel movies and shows from the past few years pulled together like this.  Frankly the only thing I don’t get is the asterisk at the end of the title.  My guess is this crew is going to be called the Avengers, or the Dark Avengers, by the end of the movie… but for now, it just means the trailer ends on a weird “huh?” note…

Here’s a substantive look at the HBO Max Dune spin-off mini-series, Dune: Prophecy:

Wouldn’t it be fun if this was actually good?  I love the Dune universe, but I don’t much like the prequel Dune novels this series is based on.  Well, I dare to dream.

Music by John Williams is actually out already!  I just watched this trailer and now I need to find time to watch this film immediately:

 

Now SmartLess listeners know why Jason Bateman had a big crazy beard for the past year!  This trailer for Carry-On, pairing up Mr. Bateman with Taron Egerton, looks like it could be fun… (though I’d rather those two had been paired up in a comedy!)

To my great surprise, I loved the first part of the animated adaptation of Watchmen, so I’m excited by this trailer for the conclusion:

Here’s a fun first look at Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan’s next collaboration, Sinners:

I’ve heard this originated as Mr. Coogler’s pitch for a new Blade film for Marvel!  That’s cool that he apparently took the idea and turned it into an original film.

Here’s a trailer for the final (sniff!) season of Star Trek: Lower Decks:

I’ve already watched the first few episodes of this new season, and they’re amazing.  I don’t want this show to end!!

Click here to read a fun look back at DC Comics’ many different versions/retcons of The Phantom Zone.  That’s fun for a comic book nerd like me.

I was sad to read of the passing of Greg Hildebrandt, an extraordinary painter and comic book artist.  Along with his brother Tim, who passed away in 2006, the Hildebrandts created so much wonderful, iconic artwork that is seared into my mind, from the famous 1977 Star Wars poster (with Luke holding his lightsaber over his head; click on that link to see it), to their Marvel Masterpieces trading card art (that I loved as a kid), and so much more.  A sad loss.

I was also sad to read that Teri Garr passed away.  She was a brilliant actress and comedienne.  She was so wonderful in Young Frankenstein, and of course I will always love her for her role as Roberta Lincoln in the second season original Star Trek episode “Assignment: Earth”.  That was intended to be a backdoor pilot, spinning off alien spy Gary Seven and Roberta Lincoln into their own show; I wish I lived in a universe in which that had happened!

It looks like the It prequel TV series, It: Welcome to Derry, is actually happening.  Click here for info and some photos.  The photos look great.  I loved Andy Muschietti’s first It film (though I thought Chapter Two wasn’t quite as great as Chapter One), and I’m always interested in dipping back into Stephen King’s worlds.  But is there really enough story here to make a prequel show worthwhile?  I’m curious to see…

Bill Condon (Gods and Monsters, Kinsey, Dreamgirls) is making a biopic about P-Funk’s George Clinton, and Eddie Murphy is going to play him?  I like everything in that sentence!  I can’t wait to see this.

I love the idea that Jason Bateman and David Harbour are going to star together in a new dark comedy HBO show.  That is a great pairing.

Speaking of HBO, they’re in early development on a Game of Thrones movie?  Ok!  I’d see that, of course… though it feels like they’re late on the idea.  (The article reminds us that Game of Thrones EPs David Benioff and Dan Weiss originally wanted to conclude the series with three movies, which I think would have been incredible.  That makes me remember the way Chris Carter planned to expand The X-Files into movies.  Neither dream came to fruition — I could write a lot about the missteps The X-Files took in its later years, and indeed I have — but it would have been cool.)

And speaking of TV shows becoming movies, AmazonMGM Studios is working on a movie version of Jack Ryan, starring John Krasinski.  That’s a logical idea, and I continue to think Mr. Krasinski makes a terrific Jack Ryan.  Unfortunately, while I really liked the first season of the show, I thought seasons two through four all pretty much stunk.  The show was too dour and too confusing, with characters who were too flat.  Can this team make a great Jack Ryan movie?  I hope so, because I’d love to see it.

Is Marvel ever going to make a Young Avengers movie?  As this article reminds us, they’ve introduced a lot of young characters over the past few years who could potentially make a great super-team!

Speaking of Marvel, one of my favorite little jokes in Agatha All Along was the suggestion that the long-lived Agatha was Dolly Parton’s Jolene.  Creator and show-runner Jac Schaeffer has confirmed that this was their intention!  I love it.

Click here for a wonderful article about Susanna Clarke, the author of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.  I had no idea the health issues she’s been struggling with.  That’s sad to read about.  I adore the Jonathan Strange novel (and the BBC’s mini-series adaptation isn’t bad), and I hope she’s able to be healthy and write many more novels in the future.

Click here for Variety’s terrific look back at Pulp Fiction, on the occasion of it’s 30th (wow!) anniversary.

So this is intriguing… Chris Hemsworth and Sam Rockwell are going to star in Stuntnuts, a new film from Matthew Vaughn.  I like all three of those names, so that’s interesting to me.  But apparently this is intended to be part of a four-film Stuntnuts series?  Ok… I guess I’ll believe it when I see it, but I’m certainly interested to learn more…

I’m pleased that Reacher got an early season 4 renewal from Amazon prime video.  (I wish they’d pick up the pace in making this show’ as with all streaming shows these days, the wait between 8-episode seasons feels way too long to me.)

Tom Hardy, Helen Mirren, and Pierce Brosnan are all in conversations to star in Guy Ritchie’s planned TV show The Associate?  Sounds good to me!  I’m always interested in Mr. Ritchie’s new projects, and all three of them feel like they’d be a great fit into his world.

Shawshank Redemption director Frank Darabont (who was also instrumental in launching The Walking Dead) is coming out of retirement to direct episodes of Stranger Things season five?  That’s amazing!

Warner Brothers is working on a Dynamic Duo movie featuring two Robins — Dick Grayson and Jason Todd — and it’s going to be animated, and in a style that blends CGI and stop-motion animation & puppetry?  OK, color me intrigued!

Click here for a little more info on the two new Lord of the Rings movies that Peter Jackson, Philippa Boyens, and Fran Walsh are working on!  Wouldn’t it be fun if these turned out to be great?

Henry Cavill is planning to star in a Voltron movie?  OK, I’m into that!  (I LOVED the Voltron cartoon as a kid!!!)

Click here for a fun interview by Rolling Stone’s Alan Sepinwall with Kristen Bell and Adam Brody, stars of Nobody Wants This.  (I’m watching that show now; I’ll have a lot to say about it soon…)

I enjoyed the recent movie Hellboy: The Crooked Man.  Click here for an interview with Hellboy creator Mike Mignola on his thoughts on this film, his attempt at the most faithful yet adaptation.

Click here for an interesting article from Variety on “toxic fandom”.  This feels like a problem that’s been continuing to escalate in recent years.  (I’m not sure the “superfan focus groups” mentioned in the article are a good way to deal with the problem, though… too much catering to the online “superfans” feels like it could be problematic…)

Click here for a Hollywood Reporter article asking if Disney is bad at Star Wars.  That title feels dangerous in catering to the toxic online fans I was just mentioning, who hate Kathleen Kennedy and anything remotely “woke” in Star Wars, who review-bombed The Acolyte and have been otherwise monstrous in recent years.  On the other hand… there’s no question the Star Wars films made by Disney have been extremely hit and miss, and ever since the failure of Solo they seem lost as to what to do with the movies.  (Solo was a film that I didn’t think needed to exist, but it was far better than I’d thought it would be, and to me, the reason for its failure has always been obvious: they rushed it into theaters only six months after The Last Jedi, and audiences weren’t ready.)  Meanwhile Star Wars TV has been, on the whole, terrific!  The Mandalorian, Andor, Ahsoka and The Acolyte have all been good to great, and there’s been a lot of wonderful animation as well (with Dave Filoni’s Tales of the Jedi/Tales of the Empire as highlights for me).  The two huge misfires were The Book of Boba Fett and Obi-Wan Kenobi (a show that still bothers me for being a huge missed opportunity — all the elements were there for it to be amazing, but instead it bungled an important story).  So Disney has had a lot of wins, and also a bunch of misses.  Overall, I can live with their batting average, and on the whole I’d rather have all this new Star Wars storytelling than not.  But I do hope they can start making some good Star Wars movies again, and I’d like to see some more stability on the TV side of things.

Buckle up for Rolling Stone’s list of the 100 best episodes of TV of all time.  It’s an intriguing list.

Let’s end with this: any sci-fi fan of my generation bought a lot of wonderful sci-fi paperbacks published by Del-Ray books.  Here’s a wonderful short look at the life and work of Judy-Lynn del Ray, the pioneering woman behind all those amazing books:

Please support my website by clicking through one of my Amazon links the next time you need to shop!  As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.  That means I’ll receive a small percentage from ANY product you purchase from Amazon within 24 hours after clicking through.  Thank you!