Toaster's Ramblings - The Fantastic Flop!

It looks like I got my wish. The new Fantastic Four movie is a massive failure, likely to be remembered as the big budget flop of 2015, the worst major studio super hero film ever and a bomb on par with Lone Ranger and (sadly) John Carter. The big question is... now what?

As of right now, Twentieth Century Fox seems to be trying to push ahead with the planned sequel to Fantastic Four, despite the estimated $60 million loss and the overwhelmingly negative reviews (an incredible 9% on Rotten Tomatoes!). Nobody is sure if this is out of the stubborn will to force a square peg into a circle hole or if Fox just really wants to stick it to Marvel Studios. I think it might be a combination of both.

As I said before, Fox clearly wants to make their own 'super ensemble' film like Marvel's Avengers movies. They are hoping to have the Fantastic Four crossover in some bizarre fashion with the X-men... possibly to fight Galactus. Personally I think fighting the Shi'ar would be better, but the whole idea is sketchy to me. The two sides don't have much in common. The biggest crossover between the two teams that I know of in the comics involved Reed and Sue Richards' mutant son Franklin, a character that is a far way from even being born yet in the films, especially with the reboot.

I honestly think Fox should cut their losses and either outright sell the property or make a deal with Marvel Studios to co-own the movie rights to the Fantastic Four the way Sony and Marvel did with Spider-man. Selling the property could recoup the losses from this latest reboot folly, while a deal would potentially lead to a Fantastic Four film that works and still brings money to Fox. As a fan, I would be far more interested in a crossover with the Avengers than one with the X-men.

I think Fox is far better off just focusing on the mutants. There are hundreds of characters to choose from, many teams to create and many villains to face. Plus, as I said before, the mutants existing in their own world makes more sense anyway. Why would the public love Spider-man and Thor but fear Colossus and Iceman? That said, if a possible deal involved Marvel being able to use mutants, that could be amazing. Wolverine could join the Avengers! Deadpool could mess with every hero from Spider-man to Iron Man!

One critic's review brought up something that Fox should really consider. He asked whether moviegoers were actually eager to see a Fantastic Four film after the last two movies in 2005 and 2007. This is a really good question. I would also add, who is really excited for a movie where the Fantastic Four meets the X-men? It's like a bizarre Abbot & Costello experiment gone wrong. The Avengers works as an ensemble film because they are an established super team in the comics; people want to see big names like Captain America, Thor, Iron Man and Hulk team up and battle super villains. However, if people don't really want to see your Fantastic Four movie, why would they turn out in droves to see them alongside the X-men? Sure, you will likely get the crowd that was already going to see an X-men movie, but that isn't what Fox wants, now is it? They want their own Avengers-like cash cow where people will cram the theaters to see. But if people don't give a crap about the Fantastic Four, then Fox will be pretty much just showing us an X-men movie featuring four new mutants with the powers of super-stretching, invisibility, fire and being a big rock monster.

Yes, the argument can be made that Guardians of the Galaxy may not have had a big fan-base salivating over a live action film (for note: I was), but Marvel was well aware of this. They knew the risks, but placed faith in their script, the director and the finished product... all things that based on the rumors Fox never did. Plus, Guardians never took itself too seriously and preferred to be seen as a comedy-action film. Fox clearly wanted their Fantastic Four film to be a super-team version of Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy, something that doesn't really work with the source material.

I also want to point out that Marvel Films got lucky with Ant-man, another lesser known property that turned out to be a hit for them. If you recall, they had a falling out with their director and had to find a new one as well as do script rewrites. This often spells disaster, but Marvel was able to pull it off for the most part (Jonny and I think the movie was a little uneven at points). Now Marvel had the advantage of more time to work with, something Fox never gave themselves when forcing reshoots and edits to Fantastic Four. If Fox had given themselves another six months to a year, maybe the movie would have turned out better... maybe not.

As Jonny Prophet reminded me, after Amazing Spider-man 2 under-performed, Sony held firm to the idea of moving ahead with a Sinister Six movie, Amazing Spider-man 3 and a bunch of other spin-off movies. Less than a year later, Marvel Studios is having Spider-man make a cameo in Captain America: Civil War. Pride can be a difficult thing to swallow, but over time things can change. I definitely think it is in Fox's best interest to either sell the Fantastic Four film rights back to Marvel or at least cut a deal with them. They should just focus on making their mutant movie universe the best it can be and stop wasting time and money on a failed franchise. It's time to let go, Fox. It's just better for everyone that way... better for you, better for Marvel Films, better for the legendary comic book that deserves a great film franchise and better for the fans.

Toaster's Ramblings - Avengers: Age of Anxiety!

We are now less than 2 months from what is arguably the second most anticipated film of the year (some might debate that with Star Wars Episode 7). I am excited of course. I am a total geek, have seen every Marvel movie is theaters to date (note that by this I mean Marvel Studios, I skipped Elektra because it looked terrible). So there is that anxious 'waiting for Christmas' type of feeling waiting for May 1st.

That said, I am worried about Age of Ultron. I touched upon this briefly a couple of months ago, but I thought I would go into it a bit more. I am afraid there will be too much going on and too little time to do it in. Plus it seems to build into the "phase 3" of the Marvel movie-verse master plan. That doesn't sound too bad right there, but when you expand the details, the task seems pretty daunting.

First, you have a ton of new characters to introduce. So far it seems we have Baron Strucker, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, Ulysses Klaw (the character Andy Serkis is rumored to be playing), Vision, some random mystery characters from the trailers (the disrobing woman in the caand of course Ultron. Now not every character here needs much of a time investment. I figure Klaw will be a brief cameo. Strucker will likely get the Batroc treatment from Captain America: The Winter Soldier, as in he's a big deal for the first fifteen minutes of the film. However, the rest need some real time to explain and develop. Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch and Vision will probably all become prominent Avengers (based on the comics). Vision will need an entire origin story along with Ultron!

Second, let's get into Ultron for a bit. Ultron is completely new to the film universe. In the first Avengers movie, Loki already had been introduced in Thor and established as a bad guy. This allowed less time to be spent on explaining him and more on the formation of the Avengers team. This luxury is not afforded to Ultron. We not only have to establish who he is but where he comes from and why he's a threat worthy of an entire team on heroes. Also, consider this... in the first Avengers movie, Joss Whedon really nailed the Loki character. It established him as a true super villain, something that Marvel films had been and continue to lack. In order for Ultron not to seem like a flash in the pan baddie (like Whiplash, Red Skull, Malekith or Ronan), we need some real time invested into him, with major scenes and huge moments that make him memorable.

Third, you still have six established Avengers team to spend time with. Obviously, Iron Man will get his spotlight in the overall story, but Captain America and Thor have to have their screen time. Plus, you still have Hulk, Black Widow and Hawkeye, who received the weakest amount of screen time in the first Avengers and... aside from a cameo in the first Thor movie, has never been in any other film. So, not only do you have the six established heroes slugging it out for screen time, but from the trailer we also see Iron Patriot, Agent Hill and Nick Fury all show up at some point. So that's at least nine established characters returning for the sequel and six new ones!

Can you see what makes me a little weary? Put it this way, both Spider-man 3 and the Amazing Spider-man 2 were criticized with being too cluttered with old and new characters that sacrificed the overall story. Spider-man 3 only had three new characters (Sandman, Venom and Gwen Stacy) to add to the established Spider-man, Mary Jane Watson and Harry Osborn (not including cameos from Aunt May and J Jonah Jameson). Excluding cameos, Amazing Spider-man 2 had to add Electro, Rhino, Norman Osborn and Green Goblin to the story that already had Spider-man, Gwen Stacy, Peter's dad and Aunt May.

Fourth, Age of Ultron seems to be trying very hard to create new movie franchises during it's run time. If the rumors are to be believed, many new characters might be featured as cameos to help try to fill out the Marvel Films universe before Civil War and to promote new franchises like Black Panther, Captain Marvel and Dr. Strange. The fatal flaw of Amazing Spider-man 2 was the fact that Sony was clearly more interested in pushing their Spider-man movie-verse agenda than actually telling a compelling and interesting story. There are ways to insert new characters in a brief manner that will pique the audience's interest. The trick is to use fine brush strokes. You can't be forceful, or else it stops being 'fan service' and just becomes obvious desperation. If Avengers 2 becomes too crowded and jumbled with introducing new characters, cameo or otherwise, it will suffer the same fate as Amazing Spider-man 2.

Fifth, Avengers 2 is clearly a transitional sequel. By this, I mean that the movie is being used to build the next part of the story. Usually, transitional sequels tend to... not be very good. Look at Matrix: Reloaded. Now, quickly look away lest your eyes burn! While the first Matrix film was a stand-alone story, Reloaded was a mess, an obvious cash grab with a plot that I still don't completely understand. Now compare that to Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. 'Empire' was a transitional sequel, but an excellent one that focused on character development and told a compelling story. Yes, it paved the way for Return of the Jedi, but unlike Reloaded, it left it's mark... more memorably that 'Jedi' did to be honest.

The first Avengers was a stand-alone film. It had it's own self-contained story that felt like a true culmination of all of the preceding films into a massive end-all-be-all over-the-top climactic battle. Avengers 2 is clearly building toward Captain America: Civil War, which worryingly has been building more hype as of late than Age of Ultron, a film that hasn't even been released yet!

To be fair, I have a lot of faith in Joss Whedon. Not only does his television biography speak for itself, but he made the first Avengers work on a huge level, making it the first superhero super-film. I hope that he has crafted a good story that gives the proper attention to the veteran Avengers while helping establish Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, Vision and Ultron in the process. I hope the any other character cameos are kept reasonable and brief. Based on the trailers, it seems like Age of Ultron has that Empire Strikes Back feel to it... characters forced to face their shortcomings, a splintering of the group and high prices to pay for fighting the 'good fight.' Such themes have made for some of the greatest sequels of all time, such as the previously referenced Episode V, Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, The Dark Knight and even Godfather II (though that last one wasn't exactly about fighting for the angels).

Hopefully Age of Ultron will be Joss Whedon's 'The Empire Strikes Back' and not another disappointing ill-conceived cash-grab sequel.

Toaster's Ramblings - Spider-man has Come Home to Marvel (Films) Edition

The news about Sony and Disney working out a deal with the cinematic use of Spider-man has been known for almost a month now, but I thought I would throw in my two cents now that we seem to know a little more about what will be going on. For a while there were a lot of rumors running rampant, but some details seem clearer now, still technically rumors, but rumors with some weight behind them. Apparently the Spider-man franchise will be rebooted... again. It's unclear if this will be a "soft" reboot (Sort of like the new Terminator movie, it's a new direction with new recasts, but the previous continuity is intact) or if we are getting a full do-over. Perhaps they can call this set of films "Spectacular Spider-man."

The reason I wonder iof this is a softy reboot is that Sony still wants to make movie spin-offs of the Spider-man property such as Venom and that confusing Sinister Six movie. That last one is strange. It seems like to do a Sinister Six movie, Sony kind of has to keep the mythology from the two Amazing Spider-man films as they introduced four of the six (Lizard, Rhino, Electro and Green Goblin) and the sequel showed the Vulture's wings and Dr. Octopus' arms. Having to introduce all of that from scratch would be difficult.

Of course, Jonny and I have wondered about how a Sinister Six movie would work. Whom would they fight? Spider-man? If that's the case, wouldn't it be his movie versus the Sinister Six? Will they fight other villains? If so, Sony's going to have to dredge up some seriously obscure characters to rival those 6. Of course, they could just fight other Sinister Six members from the comics like Hobgoblin, Sandman, Mysterio, Kraven the Hunter, Scorpion and Boomerang? That could be cool if it's not too chaotic. Personally, a purely villain driven film could be really cool, if done well. It's something that's never been done before and you could really explore the flip-side of the superhero world. It's like what Wanted could have been if they hadn't neutered the premise by making the film about an assassin's guild rather than super-villains that had conquered the world years prior. But, like I said, it would require the Sinister Six film to be written and directed well... something I doubt a mainstream studio looking to rake in cash is going to pull off. Why? Because Sony will want to play things safe and, unfortunately for them, a film where the bad guys are the protagonists is not something you can play safe. Put it this way, how crappy a show would Breaking Bad have been if Vince Gilligan and AMC had chose to "play it safe."

Getting back to the topic, it has become clear that Sony wants Marvel to help them make a better Spider-man movie. The deal is a win-win. Sony gets an improved product with the possibility of crossovers. (How cool would a Maximum Carnage movie be with Sony borrowing characters like Daredevil, Captain America, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, etc.?)  Marvel gets one of their biggest and most recognizable characters to help expand their universe, possibly as soon as next year's Captain America 3: Civil War!

One thing we know is that Andrew Garfield is out. Marvel and Sony are trying to find a new Peter Parker (last I heard Logan Lerman and Dylan O'Brien are being talked about). Of course, there is the discussion of having the Ultimate Marvel universe's Miles Morales wear the Spider-man costume on the big screen. I would love this. It would bring a much needed big name minority character to the big screen. However, I don't see it happening. First of all, it might alienate audiences. By that, I don't mean people can't accept a black Spider-man, though there are many that would have a problem with that. What I mean is that Miles Morales is popular with a lot of comic book fans, but if every fan of that character bought a ticket to a Miles Morales Spider-man movie, it wouldn't bring in nearly enough money to be considered a hit. Sony made this deal to make money, not take risks. Average movie-goers are the ones who make or break a movie's success. The majority of the knowledge about Spider-man that the average movie-goer has is from the movies... and by judging from the Amazing Spider-man's numbers, those films are from the Sam Raimi years. My guess would be that average movie-goers might not see a Mile Morales Spider-man film just out of confusion. Now if Morales were introduced in something else and audiences got used to him they might be more acclimated to seeing a stand-alone film of his. It's all about familiarity.

Secondly, I don't think audiences are done with Peter Parker. I read an article from someone who felt that people wouldn't really want to move on to a new guy in the Spider-man until we get some truly excellent Peter Parker Spider-man films. Lets face it, none of the Spider-man films have had that perfect combination. Tobey Maguire lacked the energetic spirit and cockiness of the Peter Parker of the comics. Andrew Garfield was closer, but still not perfect, plus his films had some other problems, among them failing to capture the fun spirit of the Raimi trilogy. I will put it this way, Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy gave us what I and many others consider a damn near perfect Batman and a near perfect set of films. I think it's because of this high water mark that Zack Snyder and Warner Brothers has chosen to make an older version of Batman and a female Robin, something we have never seen on the big screen before. Until Spider-man has such a great set of films, I don't think Pete is going anywhere.

Oh yeah, I want to add that while I love Donald Glover, he's 31 years old. Miles Morales is supposed to be like fourteen or right around that age. I'm sorry, but he's too old! He would be the oldest actor to start playing Spider-man in the movies.

Moving on slightly, I've seen some write-ups that Spider-man's addition to the Marvel films universe will have a negative impact on lesser known characters whose films may be pushed back to make room for a Marvel directed Web-Slinger flick. I fail to see how Marvel getting their masthead character to use in their already successful films if a bad thing. Yes, Black Panther and Captain Marvel are likely to be pushed back a bit, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. As the Marvel Films progress, it will become harder for them to keep their original actors. (By his own admission, Robert Downey Jr.'s days as Iron Man are numbered.) This in turn will make it harder for Disney & Marvel to produce films that maintain the success rates of their predecessors. One way to help is to introduce new franchises. I don't think pushing back a few of those movies, like Black Panther, Captain Marvel and Dr. Strange, is problematic. On the contrary, it could benefit Marvel in the long run not to cram a bunch of new characters film releases into a small stretch of time. I mean, it's not like Marvel won't make those movies.

I look forward to getting what I hope will be some great Spider-man films as well as the chance to have him and his related characters show up in other Marvel films. Now all we need is Fantastic Four. We just need to boycott the new movie, cause it to bomb and Fox will hopefully decide to give it back to Marvel and just focus on the mutants. Sounds like a plan to me.

Toaster's Ramblings - Amazing Spider-Man 2 AKA the feature length trailer for The Sinister Six movie

So I have to level with you. This started out as a review of Amazing Spider-man 2, but it quickly devolved into a rambling session about Sony's plans for an expanded Spider-Man movie universe and how stupid the whole concept really is. I'm keeping spoilers to a minimum, but the review aspect of this entry gets a little murky at times. So... bear with me.

Like with a lot of flawed movies I watch, I didn't hate Amazing Spider-Man 2. However, as I watched that on-screen spectacle, there were these nagging thoughts that kept gnawing at me. Thoughts about how cartoonish Electro's origin was, how little time was being allotted to Harry Osborn and his transformation into Green Goblin, why this rebooted franchise is so obsessed with making Peter Parker's origin some kind of conspiracy theory and how at times Amazing Spider-Man 2 felt more like a feature length trailer for The Sinister Six.

I just want to say this right now on the oft chance that anyone from Hollywood is reading...

THE GOAL OF CREATING SEQUELS SHOULD NEVER TAKE PRECEDENCE OVER GOOD STORY-TELLING!

As I left the theater, those same nagging thoughts forced me to deconstruct what I just saw... and what I had just seen was an absolute mess that followed in the tragic footsteps of  X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Instead of giving us the best possible story they could, which in turn could have created new spin-off possibilities for the characters involved, we were treated to an overstuffed, flash over substance exhibition akin to throwing wet noodles at a wall to see what sticks... all to the tune hundreds of millions of dollars.

I get what's going on. Sony, like Warner Brothers and to a lesser extent Fox, has seen the incredible payload that Disney brought in from The Avengers and are salivating at the opportunity to create their own "movie universes" from the characters they hold film rights to. The problem is, Sony only has the Spider-man universe, which is actually a pretty small universe when you get right down to it. Warner Brothers, to their benefit, has film rights to all of the DC characters (though rather than take their time like Marvel Studios did, they prefer to just rush a Justice League movie right along). Fox, while only having rights to the Marvel mutants side of things, actually has an impressive amount of characters at their disposal. Given the nature of the X-men Universe, they can do tons of mutant films while never feeling the loss of web-slingers or Asgardians. But Sony doesn't have a big universe to work with.

Let's stop and think about what Sony gets with Spider-man. Obviously they get the Web-Head and all of his villains. They gets Catwoman Black Cat. They also get Venom and more than likely the other symbiotic characters like Carnage and maybe even Toxin. But other characters often associated with Spider-Man's world, like Daredevil, Punisher, Nova and pretty much all of his teammates from the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon are owned by Disney. So where is this super team going to come from? Oddly, Sony thinks the answer is The Sinister Six, a group of Spider-Man's villains who team up to take on the Web-slinger... not exactly what I picture as an answer to The Avengers and The Justice League.

Seriously, they want to make a movie where the bad guys are the protagonists. This could be a cool idea (i.e. the graphic novel of Wanted), except we've been set up to root against them already in previous Spidey flicks. Now if The Sinister Six were a penultimate Spider-Man movie where he has to fight them, and maybe get help from a few other characters (Black Cat? Venom?) it would be fine. However, every indication I have seen or read says that the movie will be about the villains, not Spider-Man. Hell, he might not even be in the movie! So... who do I root for? Who do they fight... other Spider-Man villains?

On a side note, I wonder how far the licensing to the Spider-Man film rights goes. It could be possible for Spidey to form an extremely lesser known team called The Outlaws made up of D-List Marvel characters such as Silver Sable, The Prowler and Rocket Racer. Not exactly The Avengers, but it would at least make more sense than The Sinister Six.

So getting back to Amazing Spider-Man 2, here are my overall thoughts. Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone were both great. I still think Garfield is the best Peter Parker/Spider-Man ever. I think Dane DeHaan made for a better Harry Osborn than James Franco did. This new brooding, paranoid and angry Harry Osborn truly seemed to be the outcome of a lifetime of bad parenting and neglect. Unfortunately, the filmmakers tried to do in a third of a movie what the previous films did over the course of a trilogy in making him the Green Goblin. Not to mention, Franco's Osborn had a far better reason for hating Spider-Man in believing the Wall-Crawler responsible for his father's death. DeHaan's Osborn's bratty reasoning, that Spider-Man refused to give him a sample of his blood, is weak sauce.

The effects for Electro were cool, coupled with Junkie XL's Dub Step soundtrack to his scenes. However, his character was stupid. Somebody pointed out that Max Dillon's origin is strikingly similar to The Riddler's from Batman Forever... a lonely man barely holding onto his sanity becomes the number one fan of a super hero until an accident makes him crazy and hell-bent on destroying the hero he once adored. But somehow they managed to make Electro more cartoony than Jim Carrey's Riddler, and considering that movie was from Joel Schumacher, that's saying something! Seriously, Max Dillon wanted to kill Spider-Man because the Web-Head forgot Max's name? At that point, couldn't Max Dillon have just been a sociopath, like evil for the sake of being evil? I could have at least bought that.

I also think it was weird how easily and quickly both Max Dillon and Harry Osborn took to brutally murdering people. It wasn't even a hard decision, nor was there a moment of regret. No other Spidey villain from the movies were straight up murderers on that level. The Lizard was a brutal monster, but Dr. Conners was no murderer himself and regretted the actions of his reptilian Mr. Hyde. In the previous trilogy, Green Goblin was an insane split personality that convinced Norman Osborn to kill. Dr. Octopus was warped by the AI of his tentacles, but still didn't set out to murder people unless only attempted to if they got in his way. Sandman was a repentant one-time killer (of Uncle Ben... ugh, I still hate that). Venom was a killer alien parasite that fed off of its host's negative thoughts, but I don't remember Eddie Brock actually killing anyone. I also don't think James Franco's Harry killed anyone. But in this movie, the meek Max Dillon immediately takes to killing people with no remorse. DeHaan's Harry Osborn is willing to kill (sending Electro to do that) to get what he wants without any development of his character to show us his capability to go that far. Yes, I know he was supposed to be dying, but it was from a disease that clearly doesn't kill you for decades! I don't see survival desperation being a sound reason for him to be willing to kill.

I also want to point out that the Rhino suit is stupid. I wanted to like it, but it's just impractical. Why would anyone make an armored combat suit that awkwardly runs on all fours? It looks terrible, its clunky and I don't see any corporation pouring money into it. An Iron Man suit? Hell yeah! But a weird, oversized rhinoceros where the occupant faces stomach down, hoping for the best while the suit charges at an opponent head-on? No thanks.

So, in closing, Amazing Spider-Man 2 was far more concerned with pumping out sequels and spin-offs than giving us a good movie with well developed characters. Like I said, I didn't hate the movie. It was entertaining enough to watch, had some cool fight sequences and some great banter from Andrew Garfield's Spider-Man. Where the franchise goes from here seems to be a Sinister Six movie and more than likely a third Spider-Man movie that will probably makes the same mistakes of the last Spider-Man 3 by forcing along the "venom" saga within a muddled plot full of other villains and Mary Jane Watson, seeing as how they cut her from this past movie due to time constraints. I had high hopes after the surprisingly good Amazing Spider-Man, but now it's clear that Sony is banking on the instant marketability of the character rather than making the best product they can.

You know, Batman is an instantly marketable character, but Chris Nolan didn't settle for 'good enough.' Instead he and Warner Brothers created The Dark Knight, an ingenius film... the only comic book adaptation I have ever seen receive four star reviews. Oh, and word of mouth kept that movie in theaters for months and placed it in the Top 5 highest grossing films of all time.

Just food for thought, Sony.