This week, I was thrilled to get my old friend and frequent collaborator Michael Cole back on The World’s Best Podcast. Mike Cole wanted to discuss the comments recently made by several prominent filmmakers, that seem to ask: is there a place for great, smaller films in this blockbuster world?
In other news, some very exciting casting announcements have been made regarding director Matt Reeves’ upcoming film, The Batman, starring Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne. My readers and listeners know what a huge Batman fan I am and I’ve got to say, every new piece of news that I hear about this project, makes me even more excited to see it. Sure, I’ll have to wait for it’s Summer 2021 release date, but there are plenty of other cool and thrilling projects coming down the pipe between now and then. I do want to reiterate that those of you who may have doubts about Robert Pattinson in this role, are going to be pleasantly surprised. I think Pattinson is going to do a fantastic job. With a story that’s rumored to focus on the tortured and scarred psychology of Bruce Wayne as well as his skills as The World’s Greatest Detective, I think Pattinson is going to crush it in this role. Anyway, Mike and I go down the roster the roles that have been cast (or heavily rumored to have been cast) and give our take on each of the recently announced parts.
Bringing up The Batman is a great excuse to showcase one of my favorite artists working right now, BossLogic. You may have seen his work online before, I’ve posted his work on this site many times. He made up a very cool poster for movie, as well as pieces on the different actors supposedly up for roles in The Batman and what they’d look like as the iconic allies and enemies of The Dark Knight’s world. Take a look here:
Poster by BossLogicBatman by BossLogicZoe Kravitz as Selina KylePaul Dano as The RiddlerColin Farrell as Oswald Cobblepot (The Penguin)Andy Serkis as Alfred Pennyworth
We recorded two episodes, but I’m releasing the second of the two podcasts first. The subjects that we discuss in this podcast are still pretty relevant and fresh in peoples minds right now. I felt that if I waited to share this episode, it just might not be as enjoyable to the fans a week from now. Part One of the podcast has a pretty broad topic, so we’ll be releasing that one later in the week
Thanks for listening! Follow me on Twitter @PJWrightWBM or type Worlds Best Media into the search bar, you can also like and follow us on our Facebook page; World’s Best Media. Those likes and follows, as well as iTunes reviews, which go a long way to supporting World’s Best Media. We really appreciate the loyalty and support shown to us by our fans, so thanks again!
I want to start off, by saying, this post has been written, and rewritten more than a half dozen times in my brain. I talked to Paul about it at the beginning of the summer, and for several weeks, it seemed as though every time I was ready to write it, something new would happen in the news that would make me take pause, and wait to see how things were going to settle in the end. As of this past week, I think they’re all settled—at least for long enough that I can comfortably write this post and publish it before it’s out-of-date. That being said, let’s dive in.
“I’m totally gonna fuck you tonight.”
“Oh My God! I have a vagina!”
I have maintained, for a long time now, that Mary Jane Watson and Ariel from The Little Mermaid, are the reason why myself, and many men of my generation have a special place in our hearts (I’m going with hearts, since I had crushes on both characters pre-puberty) for redheaded women. As I grew up, most of the time I saw redheaded women, I found them more attractive on average, than a similar looking woman with any other hair color. As I grew up, the characters that caught my attention on shows, became the women with red hair, i.e. Joan on Mad Men, and Ygritte on Game of Thrones.
Ok, one of two possible scenarios are at play here: 1. Tom Holland’s Spider-Man suit has some kind of built in plastic cup or shield around his crotch to keep his erections from bulging out of the skin tight spandex. 2. He DOES have an erection bulging out, but Zendaya’s leg is obstructing the view in this photo. Either way, you gotta respect the confidence to be filming in THAT position, in that suit, on an open set, and be willing to roll the dice.
When I learned that Zendaya’s character in the MCU/Sony Spider-Man films, was supposed to be MJ (although not Mary Jane) it didn’t bother me, but it did make me think. At first I started thinking about the impact that comic book MJ had on me, and I wondered if this may have the same effect on a younger generation toward black women. Of course, at some point in the past few months, Disney announced that they were casting Halle Bailey as Ariel in the live-action remake of The Little Mermaid, and the question repeated itself in my mind.
Now, at first I thought, “that would be great if these characters helped another generation to find the beauty in a group of people that they may other-wise have not thought about in that way,” but I don’t think I was right on that. First off, I think that so far with Zendaya’s MJ as opposed to comic book MJ, there is a significant amount less sexualization, and that’s probably a good thing. I don’t remember much about MJ as a character, other than her calling Peter ‘Tiger,’ and I remember pictures of her more than anything. Ariel is the same thing, I remember her character, and while it was problematic I always liked it, but at least half of my fascination was with the seashell bra. This year’s Aladdin, live-action remake, did a lot of work desexualizing Princess Jasmine, and I think Disney is likely to do the same with Ariel.
Peter would have asked if he could take MJ’s coat for her, but all the blood in his brain had just plunged into his dick.
The second reason, that I think my initial thought that perhaps this idea was a good one, is that while there was something innocent about it, I do think there ultimately ends up being a fetishization of these characters, and their physical characteristics within the original material. There are demographics, based on race and gender combinations that are more or less statistically attractive, and unfortunately, black women (along with asian men) tend to be statistically disadvantaged in this way. I had heard and read that enough times that it supported my original idea that maybe lifting black women up in this was a good thing, and I will say this, if Ariel is bad-ass, and inspires black girls to be bad-ass, or if MJ challenges the stereotypes of women, that’s great, and so far I do think Disney is doing a great job with that. They’re doing better than I would have, based on my own warped logic going into this. I had to realize that there is a huge difference between fetishizing, and raising up. Disney is raising up, and I was thinking indirectly, “hey wouldn’t it be cool if a bunch of kids ended up with a black woman fetish.” It wasn’t my intention, but it was essentially what I was thinking. Hell, it was initially what I was pitching to Paul.
So, now that I have that out of the way, now that I’ve talked about the two characters who really shaped much of my physical attraction, I want to shift gears slightly, and talk about a bit of news that came out the day that I was first ‘ready’ to write this. In the next James Bond film, 007 will be played by a black woman. There has been speculation for years about who would be Daniel Craig’s replacement in the James Bond cufflinks, with a lot of speculation going to Idris Elba (who I think would be awesome if he’s still young enough when the mantel gets passed). Trying, I think to do two thing, test the waters, but also stir up some hype in the form of controversy, it was announced that there would be a new 007, and that it would be Lashana Lynch.
I think they were testing the waters, because they announced that she would be the new 007, and waited until speculation and feedback came in, before announcing, that in the plot of the new film, Bond has retired, and is replaced in his title of 007, and then he is pulled back in while in retirement. It was a soft way of testing things out, to see if perhaps we’re more into 007 or James Bond. It’s similar to what Mission Impossible did with Jeremy Renner a few years ago. It’s not a bad plan, and we will see how it plays out in that way, but it also kind of plays into my general topic.
I won’t lie, if I was going to have sex with a guy… Idris Elba is at leastin my top 3!
James Bond is perhaps one of the most sexualized male characters in cinematic history, and the way in which going about that has been drastically different from how they’ve sexualized women. Is it possible, that we’re going to get a female version of that? Will this change how female sexuality plays out on screen? Also, we have a character who is very much the coolest person in the room, and definitely has shaped young men’s idea of what a man is, will a black female 007 do the same for young women?
I think he’d make an awesome Batman
In the past few years in cinema, there has been a lot of talk about representation, and for the most part I think that it has been a good thing, and honestly I’m not one of these people who get’s bent out of shape when they change a character I like, or even love. I understand that most of these things are constantly evolving, and I don’t personally want to see the same old thing over and over. But I really think that these three examples are interesting, because they’re a bit different than other roles. Nick Fury, changing from a white man to a black man, had little impact as far as I can see, because the character was always one of authority, and I never associated with him, and I never felt an attraction to him, or to be like him. I also have to consider what it means for other people, and I don’t know. On the one hand, I think of all the black women I think are cool, or bad-ass, or beautiful, and it’s not a short list, and I wonder if that’s blinding me to a problem that’s real? Perhaps these casting decisions will help to solve that. I don’t know, but I think it’s important to ask some of these questions of ourselves.
Article by Michael Cole
–Mike Cole is a published author, freelance writer, & filmmaker. He is a happily married father of one.
Editors Note: Photos and their subsequent captions were added by Paul Wright… So, you know, don’t blame Mike.
With Spider-Man: Far From Home dropping digitally last week, as well as the Blu-Ray hitting stores on October 1st, Marvel’s “Phase 3” of films have officially come to an end. Looking back, Phase 3 really knocked it out of the fucking park. Phase 3 begins with Captain America: Civil War and continues with Doctor Strange, Guardians of The Galaxy Vol.2, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Thor: Ragnarok, Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War, Ant-Man and The Wasp, Captain Marvel, Avengers: Endgame, and Spider-Man: Far From Home. Jesus, that’s a fantastic run. Each of of these films are fucking amazing in their own way, with Ant-Man and The Wasp as the only semi-weak film, but it’s still a fun movie and by no means bad. Every film in The MCU, so far, from Iron Man to Spider-Man: Far From Home is collectively known as The Infinity Saga. One massive story arc involving The Infinity Stones and the looming threat of Thanos. Culminating in an epic battle between The Forces of Thanos and The Avengers, with the entire Universe hanging in the balance.
This a fantastic fan made poster by SPIDEYVEGAS
To say that I’m a big Blu-Ray collector is a bit of an understatement. Even though I still buy a lot of my content digitally, but I love being able to have a physical copies of Blu-rays. Basically you have a shit load of Blu-Rays. Especially Steelbook Special Editions. So when I started to hear rumblings that Marvel was putting together a Blu-Ray box set for The Infinity Saga, I was understandably intrigued. Especially because Marvel put out such fantastic box set for Phases 1 & 2.
As they were being released in theaters, The Infinity Saga was broken into 3 Phases, as I mentioned before, Marvel already released box sets for Phase 1 and Phase 2 (I actually have both of them and they’re really cool). It doesn’t look like they’ll be releasing an individual set for Phase 3, based on the comments made by Marvel Studios head honcho, Kevin Fiege. At the moment, Marvel is starting to put together a mega box set that collects the entire Infinity Saga. The video posted below is intended to make audiences excited and nostalgic for The MCU (It sure as hell does the job that’s for sure.
Kevin Feige recently talked about a 4K Blu-Ray Box Set release of The Infinity Saga being in the works. According to Fiege, the set would include all 23 films on Blu-Ray/4K Blu-Ray, the original special features from each film, and a ton of never-before-seen deleted scenes, extended cuts, additional special features, and much more brand new material exclusive to this unique release. The Phase 1 and Phase 2 MCU box sets included fun Easter Eggs like a copy of The Sokovia Accords, The Tesseract, The Orb with The Power Stone inside, or Nick Fury’s files on all of The Avengers, just to name a few. They were really cool sets. Below, I have some pictures of the cool collectible Easter Egg material that was included in the Phase 1 and Phase 2 box sets, something that we can expect to continue in a release for The Infinity Saga.
At the time I purchased them, they were around $150 each, so a 4K Blu-Ray set of The Infinity Saga could cost as much is $500 or more. However, this is just speculation on my part and there hasn’t been any indication of what the cost might be. This is going to be something for only the hard-core fans and collectors, like myself. If you happen to be as crazy as I am, then you better start following my lead and save all of your change in a piggy bank or a change jar, because when this thing drops, it’s going to be a real wallet buster. Also, I expect a release date for early next year for Christmas 2019 at the earliest, but I think spring 2020 is much more likely.
I’ll post more info on the Blu-Ray box set for The Infinity Saga as it becomes available. For now Marvel posted a great video celebrating the end of an era as The Infinity Saga comes to a close. It’s such a great clip because, for myself and so many other people out there, these movies have meant so much. We’ve fallen in love with these characters and their stories. Of course we’re going to be getting a ton of new stuff from The MCU, but one of the many reasons that Avengers: Endgame was so fantastic is that it really felt like an ending to this grand story we’ve been following for the last 11 years. That’s a really tough thing to pull off in superhero fiction, especially when we know that this universe and many of these characters are going to continue on in other films and TV shows. It goes to show you just how talented directors Joe and Anthony Russo ( Captain America:Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War, & Avengers: Endgame) are that they crushed the ending. Even though this beautiful video is basically an announcement trailer for The Infinity Saga Box Set, it so damn good it makes me want to pop on Iron Man and start watching the whole damn series all over again. Watch it hear:
Follow us on Twitter @PJWrightWBM or type Worlds Best Media into the search bar, you can also like and follow us on our Facebook page; World’s Best Media. Those likes and follows, as well as iTunes reviews, go a long way to supporting World’s Best Media. We really appreciate the loyalty and support shown to us by our fans, so thanks again!
I received a very pleasant surprise today when I found out that the short film “Battle At Big Rock“ was dropping online. As you may know if you follow the site or listen to my podcast, it seems like surprises are a rare commodity when it comes to movies these days. We seem to know everything about most movies long before they even hit theatres. Today we got a nice surprise in the short film “Battle At Big Rock” from director Colin Trevorrow. A Jurassic World short film coming out was not on my radar at all. Trevorrow was the director of Jurassic World and writer/producer on Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. He’ll also be directing the upcoming Jurassic World 3 set for release in 2021. The second Jurassic World film, Fallen Kingdom ended with, what myself and probably a lot of other audience members have been wanting to see for a long time, the dinosaurs finally unleashed on the world. Mankind and dinosaurs must now coexist. At the end of Fallen Kingdom, Jeff Goldblum‘s Ian Malcolm paraphrases the immortal words of Richard Attenborough’s John Hammond with the line “Welcome to Jurassic World.”
With the central concept of Jurassic World 3 being what a world where dinosaurs and man are forced to coexist will look like, according to Trevorrow “Battle at Big Rock” is all about setting up this central theme. The story is about a family taking a camping trip that… takes a very dramatic turn. I’ll let you see it for yourself and then give you my thoughts. Check it out:
Personally, I dug the hell out of this. It did a great job of capturing what’s so fun and cool about the Jurassic Park movies within the confines of a short run time. Basically, I think it’s a blast. If the next Jurassic World film can capture the spirit of this short, it has the potential to be pretty awesome. I even enjoyed the family despite the fact that we spend relatively little time with them. I doubt they’ll take this route, but I definitely found them to be likable enough to have them make an appearance in one of the upcoming full length features. Also, I thought it was cool that the father in “Battle at Big Rock” is played by Andre Holland from Castle Rock.
I love this short film so much for a reason I alluded to before, I feel like the movie that everyone really wanted to see after the first Jurassic Park, was a film where the dinosaurs got off the island. We wanted to see dinosaurs rampaging across the U.S.! Packs of Velociraptors hunting in our cities! T-Rex’s roaming the great American plains! Pterodactyl’s swooping down from the sky to pick off people like birds hunting fish! Herds of Triceratops and Brachiosaurus causing traffic jams! Show me that fucking movie! Fortunately, I get the feeling that’s where Jurassic Park 3 is more or less going. An article I read in The Hollywood Reporter even suggested the events of Jurassic World 3 could be follows with something like Jurassic War! Now that’s an idea I can get behind! The dinosaur population gets out of control, the humans are given some technological handicap so we can’t just wipe the dinosaurs out right away, which leads to an all out war for the planet, MAN VS. DINOSAUR! ONLY ONE SPECIES WILL SURVIVE! FUCK YEAH! Well, a guy can hope, right?
Anyway, thanks for reading! Follow me on Twitter@PJWrightWBM or type Worlds Best Media into the search bar, you can also like and follow us on our Facebook page; World’s Best Media. Those likes and follows, as well as iTunes reviews, go a long way to supporting World’s Best Media. We really appreciate the loyalty shown to us by our fans, so thanks again!
So, for the past couple of weeks I’ve been working on a very long article about the different directions a 3rd MCU Spider-Man movie could go after after Spider-Man: Far From Home. Well, I wish I’d been a little more quick on the draw with that article, because yesterday, news broke that it’s very likely that Spider-Man will no longer be a part of The MCU.
Before getting into any details, like a lot of you I’m sure your initial reaction to this news is something along the lines of “well that fucking sucks“. That’s pretty much how I feel, as well. Spider-Man has been a great addition to the MCU and I was looking forward to all of the story telling possibilities his character brings to the table. It’s really disappointing as a fan of The MCU and the wall-crawler .
So, how did we arrive at this place? Why is this tyhappening? Well the short answer is a very unsurprising one, one word: greed. When this new broke, many fans assumed that Sony was somehow fucking up this deal, due to their less than stellar track record in the past. But they’ve been able to turn things around a bit of the last few years (I’ll get back into that in a minute). This shit show rests squarely on the shoulders of Disney.
When Marvel was going bankrupt in the 90s, they sold the film and television rights to their characters to various movie and production studios. Which is why we didn’t see characters like Spider-Man, The X-Men, or The Fantastic Four in the MCU from the very beginning. Marvel Studios didn’t have access to those characters at the time because, legally when it came to the movies at least, these other movie studios owned the characters.
Another factor is Disney’s acquisition of Fox. Disney bought the entertainment division of Fox, finally giving so many fans what they’ve been clamoring: The X-Men and The FF in the MCU. We should expect to see more on the Mutant and FF front as things progress, but don’t expect to see an X-Men or FF movie for a few more years. That’s just because Marvel had so many film and TV projects in the pipeline and ready for production when the Fox deal went through. They couldn’t bring everything they had been planning and building to a grinding halt and awkwardly shoehorn The X-Men and The FF into the MCU. I would rather wait and get excellent interpretations of these characters from the company that makes truly incredible marvel superhero films, than rush things and fuck it up.
Marvel’s deal regarding Spider-Man is pretty different. It’s more of a partnership (Or maybe WAS a partnership, I suppose) with the movie studio, Sony. All of the characters that we’ve seen in the MCU so far, The Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, and many more were the characters already owned by Marvel Studios and Marvel can do whatever they want with them.
It’s different with Sony because, Sony still retains the film rights to Spider-Man. However, they reached an agreement with Marvel Studios where marvel can use Spider-Man in their movies like Avengers and Civil War. However, when a solo Spidey film is made, like Homecoming or Far From Home, Marvel makes those movies, they control the creative direction of the story and the characters. Sony essentially outsourced making Spider-Man movies to Marvel with the added benefit of the films taking place in The MCU, giving them a richer, more lived in feel to the world. Now like I said when Spider-Man is in Avengers movie, Sony doesn’t get any of the money that the film generates. But for solo Spider-Man films, Marvel gets 5% of the profits and merchandising rights, which is a lot of money. Plus having such an iconic Marvel character like Spider-Man back in the Marvel fold, is a huge win for the brand.
The problems started when Spider-Man: Far From Home became the highest grossing movie in the history of Sony. Not just the highest grossing Spider-Man movie, the highest grossing movie in the history of the film studio. For some stupid reason Marvel wanted to renegotiate their already lucrative and valuable contract with Sony. It’s important to remember that when I say Marvel, I mean Disney. The new deal Disney proposed ,was instead of getting 5% of the profits on Spider-Man solo films they get 50% of the profits. That’s insane. No movie studio would go for that. They were literally asking for 10 times the current deal. I don’t know what they expected from Sony as a response, but that’s an unreasonable demand. For Sony’s part they really wanted this deal to continue. They loved having Spider-Man in The MCU but they weren’t going to be strong-armed by Disney. Especially when they’ve had two big successes with the Spider-Man franchise on their own with Venom, which was a big hit for the studio, and Spider-Man: Into The Spiderverse which was not only a masterpiece of filmmaking, but a huge moneymaker as well. Sony is negotiating from a position of power. They have much more leverage than they did in the past. Which is why the actions of Disney seems so bizarre. But again, to be clear Sony did not want this deal to fall apart. It seems like Disney didn’t want to budge and Sony said, “fine” and walked away from the table.
This whole thing being so public is slightly odd, though not completely because it seems like everything leaks these days. There is an argument to be made that making it public like this was a negotiation tactic, because of the inevitable fan outcry about not getting to see your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man in the next Avengers film.
There’s still hope though. There’s still time for egos to cool off and sit back down to the table to renegotiate. Word on the street is that Sony is at least open to it. It kind of reminds me of the situation when James Gunn was fired from Guardians of the Galaxy vol.3 for absurd reasons (Which upset me personally because I really wanted to see the end of his Guardians trilogy). He had always talked about a three film arc for these characters. Eventually, months after being fired and even moving on to other projects, Disney finally saw the light and hired him back. James Gunn was gracious enough to come back when he could’ve just as easily told them to fuck off. So hopefully something like this happens when it comes to Spider-Man. Hopefully this is just a hiccup and we will continue to see more Spider-Man in The MCU for years to come. Here’s hoping….
On this week’s episode of The World’s Best Podcast, after this year’s EPIC San Diego Comic-Con, co-host Paul Sr. and I break down all of the coolest announcements, including the huge presentation from Marvel Studios revealing the movies and TV series that will be apart of MCU PHASE 4! The Eternals, Shang-Chi and The Legend Of The Ten Rings, Doctor Strange and The Multiverse Of Madness, Thor: Love & Thunder, & more! We also discuss this year’s massive Arrowverse crossover, Crisis On Infinite Earths! Finally, we review the new series from Amazon Prime, The Boys!
We also have some cool news we didn’t get a chance to cover in the podcast that we have posted below for you to check out.
DC’s Arrowverse panels had a lot of cool details and trailers from the upcoming seasons of each show. Perhaps more excitingly, we got some more info on their EPIC crossover: Crisis On Infinite Earths…
Considering this crossover will be dealing with The Multiverse and Parallel Realities, it comes as no surprise that we will be seeing different versions of characters we already know, but in different roles. In addition to hearing that Burt Ward will be making a cameo as Robin from another reality, we also learned that Brandon Routh who plays Ray Palmer on Legends Of Tomorrow will be taking on an exciting new role in the crossover. Routh famously played Superman in Bryan Singer’s 2006 Superman Returns, in the crossover he’ll also be playing Superman once again for Crisis On Infinite Earths, but not just any Superman, Kingdom Come Superman! It hasn’t been confirmed if Ray AKA The Atom and this version of Superman will actually meet face to face, but that would be pretty damn cool.
Routh is wearing a T-Shirt with the Kingdom Come Superman symbol
Kingdom Come is a classic Justice League story written by Mark Waid with art by Alex Ross, about the twilight of the classic DC heroes and the new, violent generation of meta-humans who are trying to replace them. Featuring this older, world weary version of Superman into the crossover is very exciting. It’s also been confirmed that Tyler Hoechlin will be returning as Clark Kent/Superman and Jon Cryer will be returning as Lex Luthor.
We also got what may be our first look at THE BIG BAD of Crisis On Infinite Earths, The Anti-Monitor with this concept art that popped up during Comic-Con…
We also got these pictures of new looks for Diggle and Laurel on Arrow.
Finally, here’s a better look at Supergirl’s cool new uniform from her upcoming season…
THE MCU: PHASE 4 (Pictures and Concept Art)
Below we have some cool pieces of concept art and behind the scene pictures from Marvel’s Phase 4 projects. Take a look…
I fucking love Kingsman: The Secret Service. In fact, I love pretty much anything filmmaker Mathew Vaughn has directed. Layer Cake, Stardust, X-Men: First Class, Kick-Ass, Kingsman: The Secret Service, that’s a pretty fucking great resume. Sure, Kingsman: The Golden Circle wasn’t nearly as good as it’s precession, but despite some major flaws, I still like the movie.
For some reason, I had no idea that a third Kingsman movie was even in the cards. I’m happy to see the series back on the big screen anyway. The Kingsman films have always tried re-inject some fun and adventure into the spy genre. I’ve never been a Bond fan or Jason Bourne (the Mission: Impossible movies, on the other hand, are fucking incredible). I was already happy to see that this series is going to continue, but like many great sequels, this movie is taking the Kingsman story in a completely different direction. Starring Ralph Fiennes, it looks like the movie is about the original formation of the Kingsman organization around WWI… and it looks fucking cool as Hell. Anyway, check out the trailer below, you’ll probably agree that it looks fucking awesome:
The King’s Man directed by Mathew Vaugh hits theatres in February 2020.
Marvel has official announced the home release of the year’s biggest film Avengers: Endgame! Hitting digitally on July 3oth and Blu-Ray and 4K on August 13th. Check out the announcement video below!
I’m a complete sucker. They get me coming and going. Not only do I buy the digital copy on iTunes because I want to watch the movie again as soon as I can, but I’m also a big collector of the cool, special edition, Steelbook Blu-Rays. So I buy those when they come out too, which you can see below…
You know what? I DON’T CARE THAT I’M MARVEL’S BITCH! I LOVE IT! GIVE IT TO ME, MARVEL! ALL OVER MY FACE, KNECK, AND CHEST! I’LL TAKE ANOTHER 22 MOVIES HARD AND SAY “THANK YOU, SIR! I’LL TAKE THAT SHIT AGAIN!”!
…Oh lord… They’ve got their hooks into me bad here, folks… Who am I kidding? I wouldn’t have it any other way….
The Crime Syndicate: Ultraman, Owlman, Superwoman, Johnny Quick, Power Ring, Deathstorm
The Justice League has battled a lot of cool, iconic foes over the years, but one of my favorites has to to be The Crime Syndicate. The Crime Syndicate hail from a parallel world dubbed Earth-3, where it’s occupants really subscribe to the philosophy of “survival of the fittest”. Each member of The Crime Syndicate is an evil doppelgänger of a member of the Justice League and they rule their Earth with an iron fist. So, instead of Batman, you get Owlman, instead of Wonder Woman there’s Superwoman, and instead of Superman you get Ultraman.
Ultraman is probably the biggest piece of shit of them all (actually Owlman probably takes the cake there). When he’s not bust freebasing Kryptonite to get his powers, he’s terrorizing the citizens of his planet.
The Crime Syndicate are most prominently featured as the villains in classic Justice League stories like, JLA: Earth-2 written by Grant Morrison with art by Frank Quietly.
As well as, Forever Evil by Geoff Johns and David Finch, which features Lex Luthor defeating Ultraman by using his addiction to Kryptonite AGAINST him. The message here: drug addiction makes you lose super villain battles. A valuable lesson for us all.
The live action DC movies may have gotten off to a rocky start, but I’m a big fan of movies like Man of Steel and even Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice. I think Henry Cavill made a fantastic Superman and it’s a shame we probably won’t get to see him in the role again. Much like we won’t get to see Ben Affleck as Batman again. It would’ve been pretty cool to see these characters go up against a group of villains like The Crime Syndicate down the line had the Justice League film been any good. Sadly that movie was a big pile of shit, so we can only wonder what might’ve been. Which is why I thought it was really cool when I found two different artist renditions of Henry Cavill as Ultraman popping up online. Check it out here:
The first piece was done by an artist who goes by the handle HouseofMat. This is the first time I’ve see HouseofMat’s work, but I thought it was pretty cool and I wanted to share it with you guys. The second piece (which is my favorite of the two) was created by Barrett Digital, you can find them on Twitter @BARRETTDIGITAL_. There are some fantastic online artists out there like BossLogic, whose work I’ve posted on the site before. So I’m always on the lookout for cool stuff like this. What do you think of his rendition of Henry Cavill as Ultraman? Is The Crime Syndicate a group of villains you’d like to see pop up in a DC movie in the future? Please let me know what you think in the comments below. As always, thanks for reading!
Star Wars is like a religion to me. Those films are a large part of why I love movies so much. However, even with Star Wars Episode IX coming out in December, all of my attention as a fan has been focused on Avengers: Endgame and Game of Thrones. Game of Thrones ended up being a bit of a mixed bag in it’s final season, but man oh man, did Endgame deliver. Avengers: Endgame was one of the most thrilling movie going experiences of my life. The movie surpassed expectations to deliver a masterpiece of blockbuster filmmaking. I’ve often said The MCU is this generation’s Star Wars, which makes Endgame the modern equivalent of The Empire Strikes Back. Like, The Empire Strikes Back, Endgame has already reached the status of modern classic. Anyway, back to Star Wars! With Game of Thrones and Avengers: Endgame out of the way, I can focus my fandom on Star Wars Episode IX The Rise of Skywalker! The final chapter in The Skywalker Saga, 40 years in the making.
The new issue Vanity Fair has given us the best look at the film so far. The June cover story is all about Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, with an excellent article by Lev Grossman that’s the most in depth look at the film yet and just a damn good read. You can read the full article the full article right here (I highly recommend that you do): https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/05/star-wars-cover-story?verso=true
The coolest part of the Vanity Fair issue is the amazing photos taken on the set by famed photographer Annie Leibovitz. Vanity Fair and Leibovitz have been covering the Star Wars movies for decades now. I still have the Vanity Fair issue that focused on The Force Awakens because of the incredible photographs she had taken. In my opinion, Annie Leibovitz one of the best photographers in the business and these fantastic photos for The Rise of Skywalker are a testament to how stunningly beautiful her photos can be. You can see them all below.
The Knights of Ren (FINALLY!!!)
Well, the countdown to Star Wars Episode IX has officially begun! Spider-Man: Far From Home is the last, “next BIG movie”, that I’m really looking forward to, but once I see that, I imagine my Star Wars mania will really start to heat up! As always, thanks for reading!
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