CINEMACON: Disney Shows New Clip and Footage from DARK PHOENIX

Those curious about the recent acquisition of Fox by Walt Disney Pictures may not need to worry too much as that very large elephant in the room was brought up from the very start with a sizzle reel incorporating properties from both brands. There was also a lot of talk about Fox and Fox Searchlight’s successes in 2018 as much as Disney’s.
Not too long into the Disney presentation at CinemaCon, Vice Chairman of 20^th Century Fox Film  and President of Production Emma Watts, who was given that role in October, came out to talk about some of the Fox movies coming up, put into the unfortunate position of following the Avengers: Endgame footage.
Before showing the footage, Watts stated that writer/director/producer Simon Kinberg has crafted a “dramatic finale worthy of its predecessors Logan and Days of Future Past.” (Oh, come ON… Apocalypse wasn’t THAT bad!)
She then recited the synopsis for Dark Phoenix, in which “the X-men face their most formidable adversary yet, one of their own.” She talks about how Jean Grey is bombarded with cosmic energy while on a space rescue mission on the NASA space shuttle (so we’re well into the ‘80s now? I wonder if the Challenger explosion has happened already or not.).
“Jean Grey discovers that her extraordinary abilities have been amplified exponentially, making her infinitely more powerful and far more unstable, causing her to lash out at the ones she loves most and tearing the family apart,” Watts continued. “As Jean finds herself on the run, hunted by human and mutant alike, Charles Xavier must reconcile his own mistakes and find a way to reunite the X-Men one last time.”
The footage opened with James McAvoy’s Xavier telling NASA that help is on the way without reveling what the rescue mission entails. “We’re doing space missions now,” Evan Peters’ Quicksilver asks him. “Cool.”
Apparently they have to save some astronauts and Nightcrawler vanishes a few members of the team from the space to whatever they’re rescuing. During this mission, the entire team is bombarded with cosmic rays and Sophie Turner’s Jean Grey goes missing.
“She should be dead,” Jennifer Lawrence’s Mystique says, and apparently the kids of the X-Men have started calling Jean “Phoenix” (because she returns alive, like a Phoenix. Get it?)
We then got our first look at Jessica Chastain as… well, some mysterious woman with white hair who isn’t named. (Cassandra Nova? A new White Queen?) Jean asks who she is and Chastain responds, “The better question is, who are you?”
Everyone starts noticing that Jean is changing, and Jean says that when she loses control, bad things happen, and we see one such bad thing as a helicopter comes crashing to the ground and the rotor comes whizzing towards Michael Fassbender’s Magneto. “But it feels good,” she adds.
“That power destroyed everything it came into contact with… until you” mysterious Chastain-villain tells Jean, “They fear you, and what they fear, they seek to destroy.”
We then get a montage of some of the X-Men trying to do just that with Magneto using his powers to animate machine guns, and we get to see some of Quicksilver’s fun powers at work, though it’s clear they’re no match for the newly-powered Jean Grey. “She’ll kill us all,” someone says – probably either Xavier or Magneto.
“Are you threatening me?” she asks Magneto.
“That’s right,” Magneto responds.
“That would be a bad idea,” Phoenix responds doing something to Magneto akin to what he’s done to Wolverine in the comics when he’s ripped out Wolverine’s adamantium skeleton.
Even though I hated X-Men: The Last Stand, this looks quite a bit better, and the new footage, especially that of Jean using her powers fighting with other X-Men, makes me think that Simon Kinberg got the Dark Phoenix saga right with this one.  Also, I’m a big fan of the underdog, so I’m kind of rooting this one, even though the footage was shown right after footage from the hotly-anticiated Avengers: Endgame.
“It’s the perfect epic send-off for our X-Men series,” Watts said after the footage.
You can decide for yourself when Dark Phoenix opens on June 7.

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Dark Phoenix, the next and perhaps the last X-Men movie to be released under the 20th Century Fox banner (give or take a New Mutants), is on the horizon. Recently, members of the cast, including Alexandra Shipp (Storm), Kodi Smit-McPhee (Nightcrawler), and Evan Peters (Quicksilver), joined the Beat to talk about their roles in the film. The cast discusses how they trained for the movie, the role of the X-Men in the fight for representation in media, and what comics characters they’d like to meet now that 20th Century Fox is under Disney’s banner.

Dark Phoenix, directed by Simon Kinberg, follows the events of X-Men: Days of Future Past and X-Men: Apocalypse. It focuses on Jean Grey (played by Sophie Turner), a powerful telepath who finds herself losing control of her gifts after a solar flare. Other central cast members include Charles Xavier (James McAvoy), Magneto (Michael Fassbender), Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), Beast (Nicholas Hoult), and Cyclops (Tye Sheridan).
Recently, it was reported by IndieWire that Shipp knocked the X-Men films for giving her little to do. At WonderCon, she was asked whether she’d be excited for her take on Storm and the various other X-Men to join the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which will enter a new era following this month’s Avengers: Endgame. Shipp allegedly replied: “I would and I wouldn’t because Storm barely has anything to say as it is. I don’t know about [the other actors] but like we never talk. So it would be really nice if we weren’t piled into yet another jam-packed cast, in which you only see me in the back of the shot like fucking sasquatch.”
For other video coverage on Dark Phoenix, check out our interview with Sophie Turner and Tye Sheridan.

Dark Phoenix enters theaters on June 7th, 2019.

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While many of the attendees of CinemaCon – both exhibitors and press alike – were probably most excited to see what Walt Disney Pictures would bring to the annual conference, the highest-grossing studio of 2018 showed up with a fairly no-frills presentation with no talent, only a little bit of new footage and not a ton to get excited about… despite everyone already being excited about Disney’s entire 2019 roster. Apparently, if you blinked, you missed the 5-second tease for JJ Abrams’ Star Wars Episode IX, but at least, a long chunk of Toy Story 4 was screened.
Disney kicked things off right away with the elephant in the room by showing a sizzle reel that included many of the Fox properties including Wolverine, The Simpsons, Aliens, Predator, X-Men and even some of the Oscar winners like Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water and last year’s Bohemian Rhapsody, films fully produced by Fox. The sizzle reel ended with footage from James Cameron’s original Avatar, which looks like it will fit in well with the Disney roster.
Alan Horn came out to talk about the merge of the two companies and how they both will continue to focus on the theatrical experience. Horn then got into the 2018 success stories with Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm and Pixar, then he mentioned Fox’s success for the year including The Greatest Showman, Deadpool 2 and Bohemian Rhapsody and its $900 million global box office.  “You’ll be seeing more of Deadpool in the years ahead,” he said, in case anyone was worried. He also paid special attention to Fox Searchlight’s past successes on their 25^thanniversary, including Birdman, 12 Years a Slave, Slumdog Millionaire and The Shape of Water… which seemed to confuse Horn. “A remarkable streak,” which includes 39 Oscars and four Best Picture winners. “It moves me to see this,” Horn remarked, being very gracious about what’s ahead with the Fox imprint under Disney’s umbrella.
He then introduced Disney’s Head of Distribution Cathleen Taff to present the upcoming slate, also mentioning the three Fox brands that are joining Disney including Blue Sky Productions, but they seemed to be taking credit for Fox’s 2018 success. She also acknowledged the Fox distribution team.Captain Marvel just became Disney’s seventh one-billion-dollar film worldwide.
She showed Disney’s upcoming 2019 line on the screen but then added the Fox and Searchlight movies including Ad Astra,The New Mutants, Ford v Ferrari, Call of the Wildand Dark Phoenix, saying that they realize there are some release conflicts, but saying some things will be moved. She stated in advance that they won’t be showing any Star Warsfootage, much to the disappointment of anyone who missed that 5-second tease earlier.
In fact, the first movie mentioned was Fox’s faith-based drama Breakthrough – and it was just a mention before jumping to the big one Avengers: Endgame, noting the $18.5 billion the 21-movie franchise has grossed over ten years. You can read my thoughts on the clip(s) shown here. (Careful: possible spoilers if you really want to know nothing about the movie before going to see it later this month.)

Taff then introduced the “newest member of the Walt Disney Studios team” Vice Chairman of 20^th Century Fox Film and President of Production Emma Watts came out to talk briefly about a few of the Fox projects, including Dark Phoenix. “It’s some sort of Disney hazing that I’m following Avengers,” Watts quipped. “It’s not right. We’ve stood on this scene as competitors for many years, so it’s a bit of a shock to be here now as colleagues, but it’s pretty clear that we’ve been drafted by the best team in the business, so it goes without saying that we’re excited to be part of this incredible team and can’t wait for what lies ahead.”
“This is certainly a historic time in our business, and obviously for 20^th Century Fox,” she continued. “While we may be living through a lot of change in our industry, the good news for all of us is that the formula for a good movie and the role of the studio in that process remains the same – creativity, hard work and a singular dedication to filmmakers, empowering to push boundaries and tell stories that stand the test of time. That will never change.”
She didn’t think that Fox should be spoken about in the past tense as “legacies are made every day.” With the vast resources of the Walt Disney company, she says Fox is ready to write its next chapter. She went on to say that this would including continuing to explore new storylines for beloved franchises like the next installment of Kingsman, Alien, Planet of the Apes, Avatar and more, trying to find new franchises like Deadpool and Maze Runner. Seeing Planet of the Apes among the franchises Fox wants to continue was the most surprising, only because most people thought the last movie ended that trilogy nicely. Fox are also looking for original stories like Bohemian Rhapsody, The Martian and The Greatest Showman.

After the Dark Phoenix footage was the Fox comedy Stuber, starring David Bautista and Kumail Nanjiani, which screened at SXSW, and will be released on July 12.
The footage showed Bautista’s police officer stopping Kumail’s Uber – Kumail’s character is named “Stuber,” hence the title — and highlighted the comedic rapport between the two, although Watts only showed the green band trailer. The movie looks funny enough from when Bautista keeps yelling directions at Kumail who retorts, “Uber doesn’t work that way,” to what happens when two young women get into the car with them because Bautista picked Uber Pool.  Directed by Michael Dowse (Goon), it seems a bit like a buddy cop action-comedy except that only one of the two actors is a cop. (It looks like Bautista is making a wise move going further into comedy between this and STX’sMy Spy.) Watts mentioned not showing the Red Band version of the trailer because “first day school and all, just Green Band for today.”

The last film highlighted for Fox was “the type of film it takes a studio to make” and that was James Mangold’s Ford v. Ferrari, starring Christian Bale and Matt Damon.  The extended trailer was cut to the Stones’ “Gimme Shelter,” because hey, if it works for Scorsese… But it looked great, especially for car and racing enthusiasts with Damon playing Carroll Shelby, the car designer hired by Lee Iacocca (Jon Bernthal) to build a car fast enough to win the Le Mans race, which means building a car fast enough to beat the car that Enzo Ferrari brings to the race. Bale plays driver Ken Miles, and the trailer shows all that’s involved with designing the fastest car, which includes a lot of trial and error, much of which we get to see as one prototype after another flies across the track, sometimes literally.  At one point, Tracy Lett’s Henry Ford tells Shelby, “This isn’t the first time Ford has gone to war in Europe. Go to war,” and that leads to a funny scene where Ford wants to ride in Shelby’s car because he wants to see “what 9 million dollars feels like.” The camera then follows Ford as he almost turns green as Shelby floors it. Out of everything I saw at CinemaCon, this was probably one of the stronger presentations, and it certainly looks like Mangold has made another great movie ala Walk the Line or Logan. The fact it’s opening on November 15 makes it seem like it might be joining this year’s awards race, as well.
President of Walt Disney Studios Production Sean Bailey comes out, making a joke that he wants a screener of Ford v. Ferrari.  He mentioned Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella and The Jungle Book as three successes of ways that classic stories have been updated for modern times, creating the quintessential live action films.
I’m going to insert a little caveat here, because I haven’t seen many Disney animated movies from the ‘90s… not Beauty and the Beast, not The Lion King, not The Little Mermaid and not Aladdin… so it’s a little hard for me to get excited about more live action movies based on animated properties. (I did love Cinderella and thought Tim Burton’s Dumbo wasn’t terrible but quite forgettable.)

The first film he presented was Guy Ritchie’s Aladdin, which is still being finished for its Memorial Day, and this was basically a scene of Aladdin entering the cave to retrieve the lamp for someone with the warning not to touch anything else in the cave. He enters with Abu the monkey, who sees a shiny red gem and knocks it off, but not before Aladdin has rubbed the lamp and released the Genie, played by Will Smith.  What follows was the entire musical number for “You Ain’t Never Had a Friend Like Me,” which is pretty wild and crazy, beginning with Abu playing the drums.
It looks like a pretty insane FX-heavy movie for Ritchie with at one point, the Genie making Aladdin dance like a marionette. I haven’t seen the original animated movie but I have seen that number, and it looks like fans of it will find lots of things to enjoy from the colorful, fantastical footage that was shown. Me, I’m more excited for Ritchie’s The Gentlemen from STXfilms.

After that came Jon Favreau’s The Lion King, which I was told was almost a shot-by-shot adaptation of the animated film. Since I have never seen the original movie, I wouldn’t know.
The scene begins with photorealistic lion cub Simba climbing up a rock to where his father and mother are sleeping, and he jumps on his father Mufasa (once again voiced by James Earl Jones), who says to his wife, “Your son is awake” and she responds, “Before sun rise, he’s your son.” Simba is excited to go out hunting for the first time with his father, and his father takes him to the top of a rock to look out across the vast African plains. He says that “Everything the light touches is our kingdom,” and it’s generally a nice father and son moment. They walk along as Mufasa tells Simba about the delicate balance of nature and how it works before they come up to the hornbill Zazu, played by John Oliver, who is the lieutenant to Mufasa. Zazu is relaying the news to his king while Simba begins practicing to hunt by sneaking up and pouncing on Zazu.
Again, not having seen the animated Lion King (yet?), I’m not sure what to think about this footage, maybe because it’s a little stranger seeing animals talk when they’re so lifelike ala Favreau’s The Jungle Book vs. 2d animation. I’m sure it’s going to do huge business and who knows? Maybe I’ll see it. Maybe I’ll even try to see the original movie beforehand. I honestly just don’t understand the appeal, to be perfectly honest.

The second to last movie in Disney’s presentation was Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, the sequel to the fairy tale reimagining that just moved to October. It’s directed by Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales director Joachim Rønning, and once again stars Angelina Jolie as the title character and Elle Fanning as Princess Aurora. They’re joined by Michelle Pfeiffer as Queen Ingrith.
Having not seen the 2014 Maleficent – and not having a particularly strong recollection of Sleeping Beauty besides the basics – I’m really not sure what to think of the footage shown. It looked quite astonishing and beautiful, but it seems the plot of the story involves Maleficent questioning whether she’s good enough to be Aurora’s mother, as Queen Ingrith is going to take over to mold Aurora into a proper princess. The sizzle reel-like trailer also included some video bits of Jolie and Fanning talking about their characters, but it’s hard to really get excited about this movie without ever having seen the original movie. Hopefully, it isn’t like Alice Through the Looking Glass, a sequel that really didn’t need to get made. I will say that for a movie that only recently wrapped production, what was shown looked great, as if they’re further along with the VFX than one usually is at this point. Maybe that’s why Disney moved the movie to later this year?
Up until that point, there hadn’t been a single star or even a filmmaker on stage, just the Disney and Fox execs, which was a little disappointing considering how many great filmmakers Disney has working with them, including James Mangold, Guy Ritchie and Jon Favreau. Having seen past Disney presentations, it struck me as a little odd, but maybe the filmmakers are too busy, you know, making films to come out to promote them for exhibitors. It still felt like a bit of a let-down, at least until the last part of the presentation.

Long-time Pixar Animation producer Jonas Rivera then came out to introduce Toy Story 4, saying that when they were talking about the end of Toy Story 3, Andrew Stanton didn’t feel like it was the ending. It may have been an ending for Andy’s story but not necessarily Woody’s.  The idea was to take Woody and put him into a new situation, and that would make it worthwhile to continue the series.
He then stated that they were going to show the first 17 minutes of the movie, which is what they did… but that’s compared to the almost hour Disney showed of Toy Story 3 in 2010. Times certainly have changed.
The basic premise follows Woody and his toy friends as they’re now played with by Bonnie, the young girl Andy donated his toys to at the end of Toy Story 3. However, Woody is being chosen less and less, making him feel unwanted.  On top of that, Bonnie is about to head to Kindergarten, and she’s been told by her father that school is no place for toys. Undaunted, Woody sneaks into Bonnie’s backpack and watched from the locker as she’s picked on by another kid. He decides to help her by sneaking out and getting her some supplies for an art project, which ends up with her pasting eyes on a spork and making arms and legs with pipe cleaners. Hence was born “Forky” (voiced by Veep star Tony Hale) and Woody is happy that Bonnie has found a new toy friend, so he brings Forky back to meet the rest of the gang. Forky is so used to being trash that he completely freaks out and tries to throw himself in the trash. At the same time, Bonnie and her family are going on vacation, which means the toys will probably be left behind, although we’ll probably have to wait until the movie is released on June 21 to find out where the story goes from there.
I have a couple more studio presentations to write up, including those from Universal and Paramount, and hopefully I’ll have those for you very soon.

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Recently, Dark Phoenix director Simon Kinberg and producer Hutch Parker joined the beat to talk about the latest movie in the long-running X-Men franchise. Kinberg, who makes his directorial debut with Dark Phoenix, opens up about his first attempt to tell this epic story as the screenwriter on X-Men: the Last Stand. He talks about his second chance and discusses the ways in which Jean Grey’s (Sophie Turner’s) journey takes center stage this time around.

Stick around to learn more about Dark Phoenix‘s X-Men comic influences and how deeply this movie delves into its characters’ psyches. We even learn more about Jessica Chastain’s mysterious role as an alien and influence on the Phoenix force.
Dark Phoenix, directed by Simon Kinberg, follows the events of X-Men: Days of Future Past and X-Men: Apocalypse. It focuses on Jean Grey (played by Sophie Turner), a powerful telepath who finds herself losing control of her gifts after a solar flare. Other central cast members include Charles Xavier (James McAvoy), Magneto (Michael Fassbender), Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), Beast (Nicholas Hoult), and Cyclops (Tye Sheridan).
For more Dark Phoenix coverage, check out our conversations with Alexandra Shipp (Storm), Kodi Smit-McPhee (Nightcrawler), and Evan Peters (Quicksilver) as well as our interview with Sophie Turner and Tye Sheridan.
Dark Phoenix release on June 7th, 2019.

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WOW! Disney is king of the box office, with numerous Billion-Dollar-Blockbusters in their library! Avengers: Endgame is closing on $800 Million domestically, passing Black Panther and Avatar to claim the #2 all-time spot! (Yes, BP made more money last year than Avengers: Infinity War!)
Fans and reporters have been wondering what comes next in what is unofficially “Phase Four” of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. With the recent acquisition of Fox ($71 Billion), fans are especially interested in the Marvel properties that Fox licensed way back in 1994…will we see the X-Men or Fantastic Four in the MCU?
Disney and Marvel have been very secretive about what’s coming up, but they recently announced their release schedule all the way through to 2027! But… (or is that “Meanwhile…”?), they left many of the dates blank, using generic titles to stake a claim. If you’re a Disney fan, there aren’t many surprises… you know there’s an MCU movie near FCBD, Star Wars opens right before Christmas, an animated feature gives you an excuse to escape from family during Thanksgiving…  If you need a template, just look at 2022:

2/18/22 UNTITLED MARVEL
3/18/22 UNTITLED PIXAR
5/6/22 UNTITLED MARVEL
5/27/22  UNTITLED DISNEY LIVE ACTION
6/17/22 UNTITLED PIXAR
7/8/22 UNTITLED DISNEY LIVE ACTION
7/29/22 UNTITLED MARVEL
10/7/22 UNTITLED DISNEY LIVE ACTION
11/4/22 UNTITLED DISNEY LIVE ACTION
Wed 11/23/22 UNTITLED DISNEY ANIMATION
12/16/22 UNTITLED STAR WARS

Early November can also be reserved for a Marvel movie (they do three a year, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they upped it to four), and the mid-December slot will alternate between Star Wars and Avatar. (I hereby name that Wednesday “Fox-buster Wednesday“, as both franchises were originally distributed by Fox.)
The March date is either a second Pixar movie (June is the anchor), or a live-action adaptation. Zootopia opened on that date in 2016, but it can’t support a new film…there have been some clunkers in the past decade! (A Wrinkle in Time, Need for Speed, Muppets Most Wanted, John Carter…)
Here’s the upcoming release schedule for Disney, Fox, Marvel, Pixar, Lucasfilm, and related studios, color-coded, followed by my analysis:

Dates, Titles, and Everything Else: Subject to Change

Notes and Comments:

• Note that August is a desert for movies. Why? Two reasons:
  • Many families plan their summer vacations in August. When on vacation, people are less likely to spend time in a movie theater. (Unless it’s a theme park attraction, like Soarin’ Around the World.)
  • Many school districts now start the school year in the middle of August, so that the year ends before Memorial Day (and to bank against any weather closings).

• There is only one Fox Searchlight feature on the schedule: Ready or Not. Jojo Rabbit is scheduled for October 18th, but is not on this schedule, nor on Box Office Mojo’s, and that date is taken by the Maleficent sequel. Sure, Disney could release a major movie, and a more arthouse film on the same week, or Disney might be rethinking the date, hoping for some Oscar buzz. The movie is by Taika Waititi, director of Thor: Ragnarok, and stars Scarlett Johansson. Or maybe, given the plot, Disney is rethinking it altogether.
  This raises a bigger question: What will Fox produce in the years to come? Will the studio become another Touchstone Pictures, or another Miramax? Disney doesn’t do much adult fare now, betting on sure things like tentpole movies and franchises. Disneynature has its niche, producing films with budgets of $5-$10 Million, and that model, along with the new Disney streaming services, could produce cheap films with large returns. Pixar already is producing animated shorts not for feature films, but for YouTube and streaming, and there’s lots of fan-favorite series already announced.

• Note, in 2020, Marvel Comics will have two consecutive weeks of movies, with The New Mutants on “Avengers Day”, and an untitled MCU movie the weekend of Free Comic Book Day.
  Of course, Marvel has not yet announced any of their “Phase Four” or “Post-Endgame” movies. Keep an eye peeled…they’ll probably stage a fan fest/press conference like they did back in October 2014. NO, I will not speculate on which movies might screen when. Lots of websites did this with the DCEU films back in 2015, and most of those dates vanished into the æthernet, dragging along those sites’ credibility. Only when Disney announces set dates and names will these “untitled” movies be replaced.

• Blue Sky Studios, best known for the Ice Age franchise, is part of Fox. They have two movies scheduled: Spies in Disguise (based on an animated short film), and Nimona (based on the award-winning graphic novel).
  For 2019, that means that Disney could have: Toy Story 4, Spies in Disguise, and Frozen 2 up for Best Animated Feature. (Four movies, if you count the CGI’d The Lion King.) This isn’t unusual; 2016 had Zootopia, Finding Dory, and Moana released by Disney. Zootopia won the Oscar, and Moana was nominated.

• West Side Story?!? Directed by Steven Spielberg?! Yeah, Broadway has numerous revivals, even giving out Tonys for Best Revival, but in cinema? Remaking a film that won ten Academy Awards?! I’ll wait and see… The charm of the original movie was that it was shot ON LOCATION, in Lincoln Square. It’s a period piece, starting with that marvelous aerial tour of New York City.

• The February/March Marvel movies are a new ripple in the calendar. Previous movies in this slot have been Winter Soldier (2014), Black Panther, and Captain Marvel. Marvel didn’t have a tentpole in May 2014 (that was The Amazing Spider-Man 2). With Black Panther and Captain Marvel, Disney has realized that the early MCU movies create buzz for the Avengers movies opening in late April, AND that those movies get an added box office boost the first week of the Avengers release. My prognostication? February/March and July/August will be used to feature new characters or teams. April/May will be the big event movie, and early November will feature a sequel. The July slot can also be used for a supplemental movie, like Spider-Man: Far From Home, which adds to  the previous event movie. (Captain Marvel did the same, ten months after Infinity War.)

• The Untitled Marvel movie on May 7, 2021, means it opens the weekend after Free Comic Book Day, which is on May 1st that year. I wonder if that will affect Marvel’s publication plans? Maybe they’ll offer a 25¢ tie-in, similar to DC’s Year of the Villain comic from this year. Marvel can have it ship strict-on-sale (instead of weeks in advance with the other FCBD issues) to contain spoilers, still publish two regular FCBD giveaways, AND offer multiple retailer incentive variants to rake in the moolah. (DC offered 1:100, 1:250, 1:500 variants this year.) That will also be the TWENTIETH Free Comic Book Day.  Hmmm…are FCBD publishers limited to the number of pages in the free issues? Could Marvel or DC publish an 80-page giant issue? Even if there is a size limit on FCBD, Marvel could still offer a Giant-Size Marvel Must-Have issue for $1 on the side. Or call it a Marvel Comics Super Special and offer a treasury edition as a variant, kinda like what they did with Battlestar Galactica!

• Untitled Disney Live Action… there are NINE such movies on this schedule. Since these are based on Disney animated features, there are 57 possible movies they can adapt (so far). and about forty that would be worthy. (I doubt we’ll ever see a “live-action” version of Chicken Little.) The big problem with these adaptations: anthropomorphic characters like Robin Hood or Thomas O’Malley (not to mention Shun Gon!) might be too close to the Uncanny Valley to work, or be worth the time and money.
  Also, if the original live-action adaptation is successful, Disney can greenlight sequels, especially if the original movie does not have music, such as Alice in Wonderland or Malificent. I would not be surprised if Disney actually does create more villain pictures. Those roles are usually the most fun for actors, and it allows Disney to fill in the backstory to a well-known movie.

• What will Fox produce to fill in the blanks around the Disney dates?  Wikipedia has a list of possible movies. Lots of graphic novels and strips “in development”! I suspect Disney is reviewing all of those contracts, not to mention the personnel working on those features.

• Another “development”: Fox (and now Disney) owns a “substantial” stake in Boom! Studios since 2017, in return for a first-look production deal. According to IMDB, there are fifteen movies which have been announced, but nothing has been released since Two Guns in 2013, and only Empty Man completed but without a firm release date. (Completed, it seems, in 2017, but not released, which is usually a sign of a troubled film.)
  Boom recently acquired the Whedonverse properties, formerly at Dark Horse, but it’s uncertain if Disney will pull the Fox licenses to Marvel, like they did with Star Wars.
  Boom’s business model is that they co-own the original graphic novels along with the creators. Could Disney acquire Boom! to gain (co)ownership of those titles? Some of you may recall that Disney bought CrossGen’s assets at bankruptcy to get their hands on Abazad. (Disney published three chapter books, and then let the other assets hibernate, including patents for viewing comics electronically.) The best strategy would be to produce and distribute the movies under development, at a cost much less than a superhero movie, then use the box office profits to acquire Boom completely once the model is proven.
  OR: Disney has Boom edit and publish their kids comics. IDW currently manages the Marvel and Star Wars titles for kids. Boom once published comics featuring Disney, Pixar, and Muppets characters.
  Boom, like Fox, could become a “low risk” division of Disney, developing properties at low cost with the possibility of high return. Archaia is an “art house” publisher of comics. Boom might need to alter their business model, since most creators would be hesitant to partner with Disney via co-ownership. (Do Boom’s legacy creators now regret their contracts with Boom? Will Hollywood Accounting keep creators from just compensation?)

As I showed above, Disney Studios has a schedule and a formula that works; last year, they had five movies which made $200 Million or more at the domestic box office, and three of those made more than $1 Billion worldwide. (Avengers: Infinity War broke $2 Billion worldwide, with only a third of that revenue from the US and Canada.) Last year, Disney made $$3.0924 Billion on ten movies (plus three movies from 2017). Second-place Warners was just short of $2 Billion, with 38/11. Fox? Fifth, with $1.082.3B, 12, 5.
While Disney does have a few faltering divisions (ESPN and cable is withering as viewers cut the chord and move to streaming services), Disney is aggressively competing on multiple battlefronts.
In streaming, they own a majority stake in Hulu (with full ownership in 2024), launched ESPN+ in 2018 (with 2 million subscribers paying $5 a month), run Hotstar in India (300 million monthly subscribers), and will launch Disney+ in November for a monthly fee of  $7 or $70 for a year. 
At their theme parks (which generates twice the revenue of the studios), Disney is actively competing with Universal Studios, both in southern California and Orlando. Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge opens this summer in both locations, and provides an immersive experience to compete with The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal. Disney has already upgraded their Animal Kingdom at Disney World with an attraction based on Avatar, and Marvel fans on both coasts are expectant on future attractions based on the MCU.
Disney paid $71.3 Billion for Fox. While it may take a while for Disney to recoup that investment, they will. (They’ve already made $10.6 Billion selling off Fox Regional Sports to Sinclair Media.) How they do it remains to be seen, but Bob Iger has an excellent track record of acquisitions for Disney. He retires in 2021, and it will be interesting to see if any of the major shareholders influence the hiring of his replacement. (James Murdoch is a possibility, but probably not immediately, due to the merger of Fox and the steep learning curve of Disney synergy.) Interesting times, as the British say.

The post What?!? When!?!: Your Updated Comics Cinema Calendar, Disney Edition: To Infinity, and Beyond!!! appeared first on The Beat.

You’re always sorry. And there’s always a speech. But no one cares.
When Magneto spits these words at Professor Xavier somewhere around Dark Phoenix’s midway point, I felt like I’d reached an understanding with the film. Could you possibly get a better summary of Dark Phoenix and the state of the Fox X-Men film franchise as a whole than this?
Because I’d argue the best and worst thing about Dark Phoenix is just that: nobody cares anymore. Sometimes that’s freeing and interesting, other times it’s sloppy and confusing. There are all kinds of things happening in this movie, often all at once and with seemingly very little coordination, and the net result is not that of a clear picture but instead a jumbled pile of unrelated puzzle pieces. Some of the pieces are completely blank, others meaningless, a few are even beautiful. And while it’s fascinating to look at each piece, it’s almost impossible to see how they could fit together to form any sort of meaningful picture.
Make no mistake: this isn’t a good movie. It doesn’t have a particularly logical story, and the nameless, faceless villains don’t have a motive or reason to exist, probably because the entire third act of the film was scrapped and later re-shot. If I try to explain the movie as a solid, cohesive plot, it’s something like: Jean Grey absorbs mysterious Celestial energy and goes berserk, various X-Men try to kill her or save her, she’s working out emotional baggage from memory loss induced by Professor X, and some shape-shifting aliens want to suck the Celestial energy out of her for unknown reasons.
It’s a poorly plotted and thin story at best, and it borders on nonsensical from the get-go. On a plot level, there are some infuriating and even offensive decisions. On a writing level, I cringed countless times (you’ve probably seen the “we should be called X-Women!” clip going around, as an example). On a visual level, the shots rarely deviate from one talking head to another talking head (I wondered to myself whether specific actors even shot scenes together), and the sets look like low-budget television fodder.
Mystique’s makeup is a good example of everything that’s wrong here: instead of full-body paint and elaborate effects from previous films, we get a strange sort of face paint and scary clown wig thing happening. I’m not sure if Jennifer Lawrence said to someone: “look, you’ve got 30 minutes in the makeup-chair each morning to get this done and that’s it,” or if this is a budget issue, or what, but it’s symptomatic of the proceedings in general.
That said, staring at some of these puzzle pieces is, indeed, fascinating.
The most entertaining part of the experience is seeing the massively varying levels of effort that everyone brings to the scenes. Instead of director Simon Kinberg pulling the performances through a single vision, we get a pretty clear view of every actor bringing exactly as much or little to the role as they want, like an office potluck. Some bring elaborate entrees, like homemade lasagna, others bring tacky desserts, like multi-layered Jello concoctions, and still others show up with disposable forks.
You’ve got actors like Lawrence and Tye Sheridan on the disposable fork end of the spectrum, reading their lines as quickly and shruggingly as possible, with an energy level hovering around 0. These are typically good performers, which is what’s so strange about the work they do here, but there’s no mistaking the quick, transactional, let’s-just-get-this-done vibe of their scenes. They stand side-by-side in stark contrast with actors bringing a little too much to the table, like that tacky Jello mold dessert from Judy in accounting. This includes Michael Fassbender as Magneto, who continues to dramatically vibrate his entire body in a way that makes him look like he’s being electrocuted every time he moves something heavy, and arguably James McAvoy, who puts just as much earnest, focused effort into his performance as Professor X as he did into the doomed Glass. In between you’ve got lots of good actors doing their best and giving more measured performances, including Sophie Turner’s Jean Grey, Nicholas Hoult as Beast, Alexandra Shipp as Storm, and Kodi Smit-McPhee as Nightcrawler. Everyone’s doing their own thing here, and the seams have never been more visible.
Professor X (McAvoy) is probably the most interesting of these pieces to examine, because to Kinberg’s credit, the film tries to do something unusual with this character. His desire to prove his heroism to the world becomes an ego-fueled power trip. He even has a direct line to the president, a perk he relishes like a fan being given backstage passes to a VIP concert. This flaw is ultimately what leads to Dark Phoenix’s origin, and when things go awry, he spends a good deal of the movie drinking heavily and telling himself he did the right thing. Unfortunately, this is nonsensically fizzled away towards the back half of the movie when he abruptly slips right back into the role of loving fatherly figure.
I don’t think many audience-goers have high hopes for Dark Phoenix, and it’s a shame that this iteration of the franchise didn’t get a better send-off. It almost feels mean-spirited to denigrate the movie, which is strange for me, because I’m not a particularly ride-or-die X-Men fan and I’ve got no problem saying when I dislike a movie, particularly one so lacking in competence as this. I guess it’s because if a movie is going to be bad, this is the kind of bad you want – some people are having fun, others not so much, but there’s always something interesting or funny happening on screen, whether intentional or not. Like the guy who fights with his hair.

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Three years ago, which honestly feels like ten at this point, Fox announced The New Mutants – what was, at the time, the latest in their genre specific X-Men spinoffs, following the raunchy comedy of Deadpool and the western drama of Logan. Josh Boone, the filmmaker behind The Fault in Our Stars, was brought in with a cast of young stars (Maisie Williams, Anya Taylor-Joy, and Charlie Heaton) to turn the property into a veritable horror showcase.

And then things started to go pear-shaped.

The first trailer was released, to mixed results, and then the suits at Fox got involved. Release dates kept getting switched, there were multiple reports of studio interference, including talk of extensive (nearly 50%) reshoots and the addition of the Warlock character from the Claremont/Sienkiewicz run, even worse…and this is how you know things have really gone off the rails, Jon Hamm was supposed to show up in a cameo at the end as Mister Sinister…but then suddenly, he was switched out for Antonio Banderas, who wasn’t playing Mister Sinister.

It’s enough to make your head spin. And then Disney came into the picture, and there was a serious question as to whether the movie would even be released in theaters at all. The much talked-about, even among its stars, reshoots never actually occurred; but now it looks like Disney is going to indeed roll Josh Boone’s The New Mutants out just as it was originally intended, free of any interference.

A victory really! Though it’s a small one perhaps, as Disney is only releasing this as an obligation more than anything and it won’t have any real impact on the future of the overall X-franchise in whatever shape it takes in the MCU.

With that said, here’s the new trailer!

The now Disney-released, but still Fox-bannered, The New Mutants will release on April 3rd.

The post A new trailer reminds us that THE NEW MUTANTS is still a thing appeared first on The Beat.

WARNING: The following review contains plot spoilers for Underwater!

Underwater has two major flaws: it reveals the monster too early and T.J. Miller somehow gets top billing, nearly three years years after he was accused of sexual misconduct, physical assault, and violent transphobia. The former can be forgiven, but the latter, not so much. Though Miller’s character is the second to die in this tense thriller that feels like Pacific Rim, Alien, and Andy–Serkis-as-Gollum had a baby, he still occupies a fairly large role, which frankly could have (and should have) been recast, because he undermines the stellar work of everyone else in the film.

Honestly, Fox would have done better to give Jessica Henwick top billing, since her role as Emily is so much bigger and ultimately more important to the story and the theme than Miller’s. Alongside John Gallagher, Jr., Vincent Cassel, and Kristen Stewart, Henwick helps carry what could be a downright terrible film into territory where the stakes feel real and the tension is well-executed.

The basic premise of Underwater is that a government-sanctioned team have created the world’s longest drill to dig to the bottom of the Marianas Trench, which is the deepest location on Earth at nearly 7 miles below the surface. Given our ever-increasing appetite for fossil fuel, it’s not that absurd of a concept, which certainly helps ground the film in reality. When the main research station is decimated by what appears to be a massive earthquake, a handful of survivors don high-pressure diving suits and walk across the bottom of the ocean, in the dark, to get to another research station where they can take evacuation pods to the surface.

If you’ve ever seen an aqua-horror movie, you know that this is where the real problems begin.

In an interview with The Beat, director William Eubank said the creatures in Underwater went through a few stages of development: “We started to get more and more mythological and without giving any spoilers away, I knew at the end of the day, to have something where what if tomorrow, they get some footage and it seems like there’s something living down there? I just thought it was so creepy. What if you see footprints down there tomorrow off of one of the things? That’s going to freak everybody out.”

The final monster product is pretty great, but it’s the performances — especially from Stewart and Henwick, who truly carry the film — that make the monsters seem all the more creepy. As mentioned above, they’re revealed a bit too early; the impact of the finale is somewhat lessened by the fact that we know what the monsters look like well before the final showdown. Still, the fear from the actors feels real (which makes sense, since apparently Stewart hates water, according to Eubank), and it’s clear that the characters know they’ve brought this upon themselves.

Underwater examines hubris, certainly, but it also examines retribution in a very metatextual way. The film ultimately begs the question, “How far is too far?” Just before the credits roll, we get the answer in the form of a newspaper graf, which is also how the exposition is established at the start. If you’ve been paying attention to the news at anytime in the last few decades, you likely won’t be surprised by the government response to this terrifying undersea disaster.

Ultimately, Underwater is 95 minutes of super tense horror underscored by close, shaky camera work, a creeping sense of dread, and a handful of jump scares to round out the fear. If you can stomach seeing Miller onscreen (with the knowledge that yes, he does die), you may very well enjoy this ride.

The post REVIEW: UNDERWATER has two major flaws appeared first on The Beat.

A new short starring Maggie Simpson, “Playdate with Destiny,” will run before Pixar’s Onward when it arrives in theaters on March 6^th, 2020.

The news was officially announced on Twitter by The Simpsons executive producer Matt Selman, who included a tantalizing image suggesting that Maggie will be taking advantage of the glitz and glamor of the silver screen.

“PLAYDATE WITH DESTINY”

Starring Maggie Simpson
Exclusively in theaters before Pixar’s “Onward” March 6, 2020 pic.twitter.com/iDRc9pegqR

— Matt Selman (@mattselman) February 28, 2020

Neither the short format nor the movie theater is uncharted ground for America’s favorite non-prehistoric animated family.

The Simpsons began as a series of shorts that Matt Groening created for the Tracey Ullman Show. The first, “Good Night,” premiered on the April 19^th, 1987 episode of the variety program. Forty-eight shorts were aired on the Tracey Ullman Show between 1987 and 1989, when the shorts were spun-out into the 30-minute sitcom most viewers think of when they hear “The Simpsons.”

The Simpson family has also made many appearances on the big screen. A clip from the episode “Burn’s Heir,” originally aired April 14^th, 1994, features a gag centered around the THX sound system, and was subsequently shown in theaters as an advertisement for THX.

On July 27^th, 2007, The Simpsons Movie, a full-length feature starring the denizens of Springfield, was released in theaters.

And the previous theatrical Simpsons short, “Maggie Simpson in The Longest Daycare,” premiered in theaters on July 13^th, 2012, running before the 20^th Century Fox release Ice Age: Continental Drift. The short was well received and subsequently nominated for an Academy Award.

While Pixar releases typically include a short before the feature, the digital animation studio has produced previous shorts in-house. Disney’s acquisition of Fox has opened the door for The Simpsons cartoon to accompany Pixar’s latest feature.

The Simpsons has been self-aware of the fact that they have been folded into the larger Disney family of intellectual property, with a gag in the episode “Frinkcoin,” aired February 23^rd, 2020, centering around Patty and Selma lamenting that they haven’t had a cigarette since the acquisition before donning matching Mickey Mouse ears.

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The New Mutants will finally come to theaters on August 28th, 2020.

At least, that’s what Disney and 20th Century Studios (formerly known as 20th Century Fox before Disney’s 2019 acquisition) now claim. By our count, this is the fifth release date that’s been set for director Josh Boone’s (The Fault in Our Stars) adaptation of the Marvel Comics series created by Chris Claremont and Bob McLeod.

Filmed in 2017, the superheroic horror movie starring Maisie Williams, Anya Taylor-Joy, and Charlie Heaton was originally planned for release on April 13, 2018. It was later pushed to February 22, 2019. This extra time was used for reshoots, while also allowing Fox to focus on another X-Men spinoff: Deadpool 2, which was released on May 18, 2018.

The New Mutants was then pushed back to August 2, 2019, making time for further reshoots while once again shifting the spotlight to another X-Men film: Dark Phoenix, itself released on June 7, 2019. The New Mutants’ newest release date was further pushed back to April 3, 2020 as Disney’s long-awaited Fox acquisition further complicated matters. Boone also claimed that reshoots were necessary in order to make his film scarier, as it was already being marketed as “superhero horror.”

But of course, the Coronavirus pandemic was already in full swing before April 2020. Movie theaters closed around the globe as stay-at-home orders were enacted, and film releases throughout the industry were delayed. Naturally, The New Mutants was no exception.

While The New Mutants’ troubled history is frustrating for fans, many of whom have wondered why the film can’t simply be dropped on Disney+ like Hamilton, it’s understandable that the studio still has a vested interest in releasing the film theatrically, at least eventually. Surely the filmmakers would prefer to see the film on the silver screen as planned, and being a Marvel superhero film, chances are still good that it could be a blockbuster.

What’s harder to understand, at least for this writer, is why The New Mutants is being rescheduled so soon from now. With so many summer events being canceled or delayed worldwide (including the olympics and a Rage Against the Machine concert I had been looking forward to), August 28th seems a little too optimistic. 

By all means, it would be great to feel safe leaving our homes again by late summer, let alone to go back to the movies. But Marvel fans may want to temper their expectations.

The post THE NEW MUTANTS heading to theaters August 28th… hopefully appeared first on The Beat.

The New Mutants will have a panel at San Diego Comic Con at Home on Thursday, July 23rd at 2:00 PM Pacific time.

Directed by Josh Boone, The New Mutants release schedule has been fraught with drama. According to the description for the YouTube video embedded above, the horror thriller from Marvel Entertainment and 20th Century Studios is still scheduled for release in theaters on August 28th, 2020.

However, with the COVID-19 pandemic still in full swing, it seems prudent to be somewhat skeptical of the stated release date. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Disney has made movies like Onward, Frozen 2, and Star Wars Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker, which had been previously been released in theaters, available for streaming ahead of schedule.

Bypassing the theater altogether would not be an unprecidented decision, as was the case for Artemis Fowl. While the movie was originally intended to be released in theaters on May 29th, it was instead made available for streaming on Disney+ on June 12th.

Some speculation suggests that The New Mutants, which has been billed as a horror thriller, might be a better fit for streaming on Hulu rather than Disney+. However, there are already other mutant movies from 20th Century Fox streaming on Disney+, including the recently added Days of Future Past (which, like The New Mutants, has a PG-13 rating).

Will The New Mutants SDCC2020 at Home panel culminate in the streaming release of the movie, or will we just have to wait until AIM-style HazMat suits are standard issue for theaters? If The New Mutants is made available for streaming, what does that mean for future releases, like the MCU’s own Black Widow? We’ve got one week until the panel, so baseless speculation starts now!

The New Mutants was based on the comics by Bob McLeod and Chris Claremont, and the adaption stars Maisie Williams, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Heaton, Alice Braga, Blu Hunt, and Henry Zaga.

The post SDCC ’20: THE NEW MUTANTS panel scheduled for July 23 appeared first on The Beat.

20th Century Fox churned out X-Men movies from 2000 all the way until last year, and while the first two were not a complete mess, there were choices made that forced X-Men fans to question the motivation behind certain decisions. As more X-films movies were added, more “what the…?” moments popped up. At least for this X-Men fan.

The X-Men were my introduction into the world of comics, and to this day, despite ups and downs in the narrative, the mutants hold a special place in my big nerd heart, which is why the 20th Century Fox movies upset me so much, especially how certain characters were shoved into the plot. While some casting choices are brilliant (Patrick Stewart IS Charles), others are a hot mess, and many characters were the equivalent of a cardboard cutout of their comic counterpart. The list of mishandled characters is long, but we’ve narrowed it down to 10 characters that definitely deserved better from Fox’s X-Men movies.

1. Rogue

Anna Paquin has fans, mainly from her time on True Blood. And while she’s snagged critical acclaim and even an Oscar, Paquin’s Rogue is lukewarm at best and fails to capture the essence of the character. Yes, she played a young, scared version and not the mutant powerhouse, but even as the films continued, Paquin spent more time looking surprised and scared than using sass and any type of strength, even to cover her own insecurities. We can’t blame the actress completely, of course. The writing and directing should also be held accountable. But it would be nice to have an Anna Marie with a little spunk.

2. Emma Frost

The version of Emma with the most screen time is in X-Men: First Class, and she was essentially a really hot set piece. January Jones looked the part, but a few times I was afraid someone might need to check her pulse for signs of life. Again, not blaming Jones completely as she’s at the whim of the script, but for a character as complicated as Emma Frost, to see her as a pretty henchman was sad.

3. Mystique

So in the X-Men movies’ first attempt at Mystique, she more or less said nothing and was an excuse to paint Rebecca Romijn blue and have her slink around naked. In the second version played by Jennifer Lawrence, she was barely Raven. Mystique is one of my favorite villains, emphasis on VILLAIN. At least in the early films, she was a bad guy. In First Class and forward, it very much felt like they couldn’t let her be the manipulative antagonist she should be because America’s Sweetheart played her. This point is further highlighted by how less blue she got as the series progressed.

4. Kitty Pryde

I love Elliot Page, and their version of Kitty Pryde should have been much more than it was. Earlier films — the first two X-films in which Kitty was played by two different actresses prior to Page’s casting, and X-Men: The Last Stand which placed Kitty in a slightly more prominent role — just didn’t do anything with the character (notice a theme), but the movie that placed her front and center was Days of Future Past. Unfortunately, front and center meant shouting at everyone with her hands on Logan’s head and using powers she shouldn’t have. Kitty phases. She’s not a psychic. With Charles sitting literally right there, why was Kitty sending anyone back in time?

5. Sabretooth

Another example of a major villain with a good backstory and depth becoming a mere henchman. When Liev Schrieber takes over the character from Tayler Mane, there is more weight and an actual character behind the feral mutant, but Sabretooth is psychotic and dangerous, and I never really felt that from either version.

6. Darwin

Darwin is a pretty powerful dude. His mutant power is he can evolve based on the circumstances around him, which means he can basically survive anywhere and in any situation. Underwater? Gills. Fire? Well, now he’s fireproof. Getting beaten by, oh, the Hulk? Well, when sapping gamma radiation to fight on Banner’s level didn’t work, he could now teleport outta there. Adaptive. Great in any fight. So why did Edi Gathegi’s Darwin get beat in First Class?

7. Jubilee

In the first set of films, Jubilee was basically an extra, with casual mentions here and there. In Apocalypse, Lana Condor takes on the pyrotechnic mutant and the most exciting thing about her place in the movie is her yellow jacket. The girl shoots freakin’ fireworks out of her hands and it’s still boring. No wonder she didn’t come back for Dark Phoenix.

8. Psylocke

Olivia Munn looks like Psylocke. And if the character was given any respect in the script, she would have been a bad-ass Betsy. Instead, she’s reduced to one of Apocalypse’s horsemen and spends most of her scenes looking on in awe at the crazy stuff En Sabah Nur can do. And just when you think you’re going to see a cool fight scene with her, it fizzles out.

9. Cyclops

I actually love James Marsden as Scott Summers. I think physically he works and his carriage and delivery remind me of the comic. The problem is Scott was shoved to the background in favor of the more popular Wolverine, who basically took over as the main reason for anything in nearly every film (Scott’s not alone, as Logan even steals Kitty’s thunder as the one to time hop in Days of Future Past). Instead of the complicated team leader, the Cyclops we get is a meek, confused, unsure man who wonders why Jean keeps ditching him for Logan.

10. Gambit

I can talk about how Taylor Kitsch’s Remy lacked any charisma. I can rant about how his power set was represented in a strange way. But honestly… can I get a mon ami? No?

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