Matthew Monagle
It’s Rough Nights All Around in the Latest Batch of ‘Ghost in the Shell’ TV Spots
After nearly six months of writing about teasers, trailers, and rumors for Paramount Pictures’ live-action Ghost in the Shell film, I figured it was time to sit down and actually watch the original 1995 animated movie. And I am here to tell you that it cleared up nothing for me. I’ll admit, the animation, production design, and soundtrack are all as impressive as rumored — the manga’s influence on the Wachowski Sisters is pretty hard to ignore in hindsight — but one movie was not enough to clear up my confusion regarding the Ghost in the Shell characters and universe as a whole.
‘Game of Thrones’ Creator George R.R. Martin to Open His Very Own Movie Studio
About a decade ago, one of the hot new trends in the film industry was states writing tax credits into their statutes and regulations for the film industry. The idea was that rather than making California and Vancouver double for every city in North America, Hollywood would be able to shoot on location at roughly the same cost and local business would benefit from access to studio productions. Of course, there is an obvious flaw with this plan: while studios might gain access to locations through tax credits, the local infrastructure they need — stages, technicians, union members — is often nowhere to be found. As recently as August 2016, Variety had declared this a dead experiment.
Weekend Box Office Report: ‘Kong: Skull Island’ Climbs to the Top of the Charts
While the giant ape in Kong: Skull Island may not climb any New York skyscrapers this time around, he certainly did climb the box office charts. The latest Warner Bros. monster movie shot all the way to the top spot in its opening weekend, with Logan and the surprising hit Get Out both shifting one spot down to accommodate him.
A New ‘Transformers: The Last Knight’ Clip Shows Humanity’s Dark Future
With Michael Bay hanging up his transforming robot spurs after this summer’s Transformers: The Last Knight, a lot seems to be hinging on the success of his final outing. Paramount already has plans to create a Transformers cinematic universe with a series of movies based on individual characters from the series; should Bay’s final film trip coming out of the gate, it could throw a wrench into a pretty expensive set of gears. And while no one would confuse me with the world’s biggest Transformers fan, the hint of time travel and goofy historical retconning at least makes this one seem kind of fun.
Jack Sparrow Loses His Pants in the International Trailer for ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales’
For many movie fans, international trailers are an afterthought, an attempt to repackage previously released footage for a new market. But given the popularity of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies abroad, it’s probably safe to say that Disney takes its international footage pretty seriously. After all, the previous film in the franchise, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, grossed a total of $240 million domestically and $804 million internationally. Put another way: the film failed to make back its budget ($250 million) in the United States but tripled it abroad.
Weekend Box Office Report: ‘Logan’ Claws Its Way to the Top
With Hugh Jackman’s Logan opening in theaters this weekend, the top spot of this list was never in doubt. The questions were always whether audiences would respond well to the first major R-rated superhero movie. Was the big opening of Deadpool an abberation or a sign of things to come? If today’s numbers are any indication, the answer is, maybe a little bit of both.
‘Logan’ Screenwriter Explains Why This Film Works Better Than ‘The Wolverine’
There are two ways in which Logan represents a major change for superhero movies. The first, and most obvious, is the maturity of its content. Wolverine swears, Xavier swears, people get decapitated, and both Hugh Jackman and Dafne Keen spend the majority of the film covered in fake blood. Perhaps the more interesting change, though, is what Logan doesn’t do. It doesn’t feel the need to wrap up two decades’ worth of canon, or leave the door open for a sequel, or culminate in a big fight sequence with recognizable faces from the X-Men universe. Put it another way: Logan is the best at what it does, but what it does isn’t very superhero movie-ish.
James Cameron’s ‘Terminator 2’ 3D Re-Release Will Hit Theaters in August
In a piece of news bound to make you say, “Wait, is this still a thing?”, it looks like we’ll still be getting that Terminator 2 3D conversion after all. Scroll back through our archives and you’ll find our very first mention of the Terminator 2 re-release in December of 2015. Back then, word was that James Cameron and company would time the theatrical re-release of the film to its 25th anniversary on July 3. For one reason or another, though, the studio missed that window, and thousands of people around the world were only able to relive their love of the Terminator franchise in the same boring two dimensions they’d always had. Sad.
Baby Groot Might Just Kill Us All in This International ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2’ Poster
If I were a Marvel sales rep, I would get down on my knees every day and thank Thanos for the series of events that led to Baby Groot. Baby Groot might just be the pinnacle of Hollywood marketing; not only is his cute visage the perfect thing to slap on every action figure, lunch box, and stuffed animal from here to the moon, it’s also a character that sidesteps typical customer cynicism. If fans felt for one moment that Baby Groot was a thinly veiled attempt to sell them more junk, they would push back on James Gunn and Marvel with all their strength. But instead, we are treated to one of the baddest killing machines in the galaxy who happens to be totally adorable, too.
New York Toy Fair Offers Up Some ‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’ Spoilers
This past weekend, fans from around the world flocked to the Javits Convention Center in New York City to attend the annual conference put on by the Toy Industry Association, Inc. In recent years, Toy Fair New York has become a hot spot for movie fans as well, with new action figures and toy sets offering first looks at the comic book adaptations of the following summer. One of the big hits of this year’s conference was Spider-Man: Homecoming, with a few new character designs and even a potential look at the film’s final battle.
Laurence Fishburne Explains Why He Won’t Appear in ‘Justice League’
While fans sit at home and worry about the behind-the-scenes struggles of The Batman and Flash, Zack Snyder keeps moving right along with that Justice League movie. A common complaint of the DC Cinematic Universe is that they haven’t let it bake in the oven enough; each character has a decent foundation in place with the supporting characters and visuals, but rather than build them up organically, Warner Bros. has chosen to throw them all together and hope things shake out for the best.
Take the ‘Cure for Wellness’ Super Bowl Spot and Call Me in the Morning
Here’s the best movie trailer of the Super Bowl.