After India ended the day batting on 264/5 on Day one of the second Test match at Sabina Park, Kingston, Indian batsman Mayank Agarwal said that the team was in a great position despite having lost five wickets, owing to how tough batting conditions were.Universal’s The Mummy was quite the hit for the studio back in the late nineties. At the time, no one really knew what to make of the film, but a great marketing campaign, combined with a reboot that succeeded in both updating the story for modern audiences, as well as paying homage to its forebears, helped the film thrive upon its release.
It also didn’t hurt that the final product oozed fun, in a very similar fashion to the Indiana Jones movies, and proved to be just what audiences wanted. Unfortunately, though, Universal tried to update the property again in 2017, hoping to spawn an entire interlinked cinematic universe, and the results weren’t pretty, as the film crashed and burned on arrival.
Starring Tom Cruise, it jettisoned essentially everything that made the 90s version special. It was no longer a fun romp with charming and likeable leads, but rather a droll action flick moving from set piece to set piece.
Though the franchise is back on the shelves after that disastrous turn, many fans still have great affection for the 1999 tale of Rick O’Connell battling a giant sand monster. In fact, the film’s lead, Brendan Fraser, was recently asked if he had any desire to return to the series, to which he responded:
“Absolutely! Working with Rachel, it’s Rachel f’in Weisz. She’s wonderful, you know, if you’re really impressed with talent and good humor. A belly laugh that could break a window. I mean, come on. It’s Rachel Weisz, she’s lovely. And believe everything. She got stuck with all the exposition in that show. Which is good, that means all the talking. I was just the guy like, ‘Hurry up, let’s go, come on! That thing is gonna go bang!’ It worked out.”
And while his eagerness is certainly nice, he was quick to elaborate further, stating:
“Just gotta say, I know how hard it is to make that movie. I tried to do it three times, and the essential ingredient is fun. You gotta remember to have fun. So if there’s a fun way to approach it again, I’m all in.”
While the chances of this ever coming to pass are slim, it’s nice to know that Fraser would show up if asked, so long as the spirit of the first film (and a certain cast member) came back as well. In any case, it’s arguably the most prominent role in his career and one that fans most respond to. As such, maybe The Mummy franchise will go for a fourth round sooner rather than later. For now, audiences can only hope.
Back when I was a kid, Scooby-Doo and the gang went up against foes who were corrupt real estate developers in elaborate costumes. Save for maybe The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, that standard held true until the day when these beloved characters began facing off with actual supernatural entities.
On that note, one could say a huge turning point arrived in 1998 when Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island dropped, and that flick really lived up to its name. Funny enough, I remember its arrival coinciding with a big Resident Evil multimedia boom, so I find it oddly appropriate that Scooby-Doo! Return to Zombie Island is gearing up for home video release not long after the Resident Evil 2 remake hit shelves.
Getting back to the mystery solving bunch themselves, you can check out a clip taken from the highly anticipated sequel at the top of this article. In it, Shaggy, Scooby, Fred, Velma and Daphne come across some zombies yet again – and they’re melting for some reason. Whatever that is remains to be revealed, but those sure aren’t Resident Evil 4‘s dissolving Ganados, I’ll tell you that much.
For now though, we’ll make do with the official synopsis:
Scooby-Doo and his pals win an all-expense paid vacation and embark on a trip of a lifetime to a tropical paradise. Their destination however, turns out to be Zombie Island. As soon as they arrive, they realize the place looks strangely familiar and is reminiscent of a trip they took years ago, in which they became wrapped up in a mystery involving zombies. The gang soon learns that their trip to paradise comes with a price when the zombies re-emerge and attack their hotel. Will Scooby-Doo and the Mystery Inc. gang finally solve the mystery behind Zombie Island?
When it comes to the voice cast, the following talents have been enlisted: Frank Welker as Scooby-Doo/Fred Jones, Grey Griffin as Daphne Blake, Matthew Lillard as Shaggy Rogers and Kate Micucci as Velma Dinkley.
Scooby-Doo! Return to Zombie Island will be made available digitally on September 3rd, with a DVD release set to follow on October 1st. Will you be picking it up? Let us know in the usual place below!
Now that The Matrix 4 has been made official, I’m sure I know how Star Wars fans felt when The Force Awakens arrived in theaters back in 2015. Granted, we’re talking about a mere announcement and not an actual opening weekend, but this is something I’ve been waiting to hear since 2003.
What especially made all this exciting was confirmation on both Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss returning to the franchise. I’ll explore what this may mean momentarily, but let’s first focus on aesthetics, shall we?
Most recently, digital artist iHasanKazi shared a piece on Instagram illustrating how Reeves may appear in a fourth Matrix flick. As you can see, the trench coat from the first movie’s infamous lobby scene has made a comeback, while the John Wick beard is carried over. Considering how Reeves has become synonymous with that facial hair these days, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if he kept it for this role – and it may be appropriate because we don’t know which version of the One he’s playing.
On that note, it’s about time someone brought up how both Neo and Trinity are very much dead. When it comes to Neo, it’s expected that the One essentially reincarnate with each successive version of the Matrix, but how about Trinity? She’s merely a human and breathed her last breath in Revolutions.
Now, it could be argued that we may bear witness to a past or future version of the Matrix, but then we have to make mention of reports saying a younger Morpheus may be cast. If that’s the case, then there’s no way he could’ve interacted with another iteration of the One because, again, the prime program is reinserted whenever the Matrix reloads.
Suffice it to say, Lana Wachowski and her cohorts have a lot of questions to answer as The Matrix 4 begins taking shape. As Trinity was once quoted as saying, “It’s the question that drives us.” And at this point, it is, as Morpheus would describe it, “a splinter in your mind driving you mad.”
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker isn’t just closing the Sequel Trilogy, as a lot has been said about it wrapping up the entire Skywalker saga that’s been unfolding for the past 40 years. Naturally, this means that a lot of long-running characters will bow out for the final time. And it sounds like C-3PO will be among them.
Anthony Daniels was asked about his final day on set for Episode IX in an interview with Variety at D23, with the Star Wars legend revealing that it was an “emotional” day but that he felt “satisfied” to “say goodbye.”
“It was difficult not to tear up a bit. Partly because J.J. [Abrams] said some really nice things and all the crew were listening and watching. I have to admit it was an emotional moment, but I knew it was coming. It wasn’t even a scene in which I said anything. For once, Threepio was in a scene without butting in. But I felt it’s such a terrific movie that I thought it was okay to say goodbye. I feel satisfied with this one. I have something to be proud of that, you know, as I say goodbye.”
So, get ready to say farewell to Threepio, folks. As sad as it is, it makes a lot of sense for this to be the last time we see the droid – certainly chronologically – if Rise is really going to conclude the narrative of all nine chapters. Two of the few constants of every trilogy has been the presence of Threepio and R2-D2, with the pair being there for the Rebellion’s revolt against the Empire, the Resistance versus the First Order and even Anakin’s fall to the Dark Side, even if they don’t remember it.
Now we’ve just got to worry about how exactly Threepio and Artoo are written out. That shot of the protocol droid with glowing red eyes in the second trailer (above) doesn’t fill us with confidence that he’ll make it through in tact. Their fates will be revealed though when Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker arrives in cinemas on December 20th.
The question of rights to Marvel characters has long been significant for deciding who gets to appear in which movie. Indeed, the success of the MCU has partly been down to Disney’s ruthless exploitation of Marvel’s IP, now extended to properties previously held by 20th Century Fox. The ongoing dispute over the Spider-Man rights show just how important a bargaining chip a character can be for a studio’s future plans and helping to sort through the complexity of these rights is a new graphic from The Geek Twins, which breaks down which company owns which Marvel character.
You can see the original Tweet with the graphic here, or in the gallery below, but to give a brief rundown of where things stand at the moment, rights are split into four sometimes overlapping bubbles: Marvel Studios at Disney, Universal Pictures, Sony Pictures and Netflix. It’s no surprise that the Disney section is the largest, taking in everyone from Iron Man to the newly acquired X-Men and the Fantastic Four, through to less-explored superhero teams like Alpha Flight and the stars of upcoming Disney Plus shows.
Disney overlap with Universal Pictures a bit, too, due to deals made for characters orbiting the Hulk, with Namor and his complicated rights sitting between the two studios at the moment, and Rick Jones, or A-Bomb, seemingly outside the Marvel sphere altogether. Sony Pictures are the other major stakeholder in Marvel via Spider-Man and his assorted friends, family and villains, at least until a new deal can be arranged to continue using them in the MCU.
Finally, Netflix have their Defenders universe, including Daredevil and the Punisher, with an overlap on Kingpin with Sony. These rights will expire in two years though, allowing Marvel to potentially introduce the characters as part of the MCU proper, having already been loosely connected to the main franchise continuity. Of course, it wouldn’t be Marvel without Stan Lee, either, who gets his own special place in the visual guide.
All in all, the graphic represents an impressive effort to tie together what’s currently on the table for Marvel, and should prove handy when trying to work out who can be incorporated into Disney’s Phase 4 and any subsequent live-action properties.
While it seems like the majority of fans are going to love Joker, there will definitely be a few who are displeased with the movie’s take on the iconic titular character. Director Todd Phillips has a message for those critics, though: don’t worry. The villain will inevitably be back again in some way, shape or form.
“There are always going to be naysayers, but from what I gather about the momentum of the movie and the response to the teaser we put out, the majority of fans seem to be excited about going down a different road… but also, this will not be the last Joker movie ever made. It might be the last one Joaquin and I do, but someone else is going to come along and do another one, just like with Spider-Man.
So if you don’t like this one, don’t worry — it’ll get reinvented again… that’s the fun thing about these characters… in a way, comic books are our Shakespeare and just like there are many versions of Hamlet and Macbeth, they’ve done four or five versions of the Joker in the last 25 or 30 years. So why not do another one that’s wildly different?”
It truly does seem like the legendary bad guy will be a recurring portrayal throughout the future of cinema. Just like James Bond, audiences can’t get enough of this fictional badass. Some movies with the Clown Prince at the forefront are bound to be better than others, of course, but that’s the risk that filmmakers take on when they try to create or adapt material featuring such a beloved character.
It does sound like Joker is going to be a huge success, though. Thanks to leading man Joaquin Phoenix, who’s rumored to have given the best performance of his prolific career, the movie is already receiving some Oscar buzz. Fans’ expectations are going to be sky high, so it’s going to be interesting to see if this film can meet or possibly even exceed them.
It’s nice that Phillips realizes that his adaptation is not the last of its kind, but it’s also sad that this sounds like it’s going to be the last Joker movie he and Phoenix ever undertake. If this flick really is all it’s cracked up to be, audiences are going to be begging for more from the dynamic duo. Maybe they’ll change their minds if the feature does as well as they hope it’s going to, or maybe we won’t even want them to return if it ends up being a flop?
Either way, the pic is definitely going to be something that all fans of the character are going to want to see when Joker hits theaters on October 4th.
When it comes to the currently gestating Resident Evil cinematic reboot, I have three things to request from Sony Pictures: actually make it a horror movie, base it on one of the classic video games, and keep Paul W.S. Anderson the hell away from it. Considering how incoming director Johannes Roberts says the flick will be “super, super scary,” two of those boxes have seemingly been checked off.
In certain respects, one could argue that Resident Evil: Apocalypse was an adaptation of Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, but I’d say “bastardization” was a more apt description. Still, it’s the closest thing we’ve gotten to a full-on game-to-screen translation.
If I were to have my way though, one of the first two games would serve as the basis for the upcoming silver screen reboot. Perhaps acclaimed digital artist Boss Logic had the same thing on their mind, too, as one of their latest pieces places Marvel Studios staples Chris Evans and Scarlett Johansson in the roles of Leon Kennedy and Claire Redfield, respectively, and can be viewed below.
While I’m uncertain of whether this franchise will be able to attract such high profile actors at this point, landing Evans and Johansson would provide it with a massive boost. Let’s not forget what a gargantuan hit the Resident Evil 2 remake was for Capcom earlier this year, and one would have to imagine a movie based on it would make the fans go nuts.
Really, just picture it now: the Captain America and Black Widow actors finding themselves caught up in the horror that was the Raccoon City incident, with only their wits and bullets there to keep them alive. And if tons of zombies aren’t enough to keep them on their toes, I’m sure Mr. X wouldn’t mind keeping them company.
So, while we continue pondering the possibilities of the next Resident Evil movie, we’ll advise you to keep watching this space as more develops. Hopefully the wait doesn’t prove as agonizingly long as the one for the original movie had been, though. Long story short, that was a four-year journey that saw several scripts thrown out the window before Anderson’s film hit theaters.
