Movie Scum

Photo: Warner Bros. Reports earlier today indicated Warner Brothers' 'The Batman' had to cease production after a recent restart due to a crew member testing positive for Covid-19, the novel coronavirus. But it has since come out that the infected party is none other than The Batman himself, Robert Pattinson. If a billionaire vigilante can catch this, what hope is there for the rest of us? Source: Robert Pattinson Has COVID-19, Halting  The Batman  Production | Vanity Fair

Photo: Lionsgate Entertainment This afternoon, I was surprised to see a news article about the directors of the new Texas Chainsaw Massacre reboot being replaced. As anyone, I promptly exclaimed "Jesus Christ, another one?"

Photo: Laurel Entertainment Inc. Oh, wait. The Walking Dead is still on? And SyFy had their own batshit crazy zombie show Z-Nation ? Hmm ...

New reports indicate that the Texas Chainsaw Massacre series is still alive ... for some reason.

The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League may be back on the field soon, courtesy of Amazon’s TV arm.

With the recent news of Jamie Lee Curtis returning to the new Halloween film in 2018, another exciting franchise vet is coming back: creator John Carpenter .

Information has been slowly trickling out about David Gordon Green ’s untitled Halloween continuation coming in 2018. Now, we know who Michael will be facing ... again.

After shattering box office records this weekend, in less than a week, Andy Muschietti ’s adaptation of Stephen King’s It has become a legitimate phenomenon. While other corners of the internet debate over whether It is a horror movie or not (spoiler: it totally is), production of the story’s second half is gearing up as Muschietti and writer Gary Dauberman are hard at work on the script. Chapter 2 is presumed to be released sometime in 2019. In the meantime though, for the home release on Blu-ray and Digital later this year, Muschietti tells Yahoo Movies that he is working on a director’s cut to add back approximately 15 minutes to the film. Given the original novel ran over 1000 pages, one would suspect there was quite a bit on the cutting room floor. More and more movies recently have included “Director’s Cuts” on home video release and this is certainly not a new development in home media. But most of these titles reek more of justifying a purchase to a film that view...

As it turns out, making a successful Star Wars film is hard. Fans were excited for new chapters in their favorite franchise among the stars when Disney announced it was purchasing Lucasfilm and the rights to further films in 2012. But it has not all been smooth sailing since then. The first new Star Wars film in over a decade, The Force Awakens , made close to a billion dollars worldwide and was received favorably, even if the tide of fandom has turned on JJ Abrams and his over-reliance on elements from previous films. In December 2015, any Star Wars fan likely would have been gushing over the film. Now, it’s met more with a shrug. Since The Force Awakens though, most of the other announced properties have gone through an upheaval. Josh Trank was fired from his spinoff. Gareth Edwards was forced to do massive retooling on Rogue One . Chris Lord and Phil Miller were let go during production of the upcoming Han Solo film. And just last week, Colin Trevorrow , who was in pre...

I kid. She was great in Black Swan . Jane Foster will not be sticking around in Marvel’s sandbox. This isn’t really news considering production on Thor: Ragnorak began last month with no word of Jane’s return. Now, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Natalie Portman has declared her doneness, once and for all: “As far as I know, I’m done,” she said. “I mean, I don’t know if maybe one day they’ll ask for an Avengers 7, or whatever.” She continued by saying that Thor “was a great thing to be a part of.” Okay, maybe so it’s not ironclad but Portman doesn’t appear to be hanging her hopes on playing the straight-man to Chris Hemsworth’s Thor. To be fair, Jane really never did much else besides spout scientific exposition and be in danger when the story called for it. Fingers crossed though this means Kat Dennings’ Darcy is still around though.

How many times can this dejected comic book series be adapted? I do not read comic books but I can dig comic book films, provided they don’t look like complete failures. So far, the Marvel comic series Fantastic Four has produced three films and not a single one has even hinted at something I’d be interested in seeing. But after last summer’s shit-show of Fant4stic , which not only managed to piss a bunch of fans off even more but also lose the studio a lot of movie, producer Simon Kinberg wants another bite at this festering apple of a series. Telling Den of Geek! that the much maligned property is still in play at Fox, Kinberg offers a bit of a mea culpa and a desire to continue with the present cast: “I think we made many mistakes when we made that movie - mistakes that we learned from and we wouldn’t repeat. I think we tried to make a darker Fantastic Four movie, which seemed like a radical idea but we were kind of messing with the DNA of the actual comic instead o...

Christopher Nolan goes back to Europe with his new film, Dunkirk . Set during the Battle of Dunkirk in 1940, Nolan’s original screenplay will center around the evacuation of the titular French city of Allied soldiers and citizens. And I now know more about this WWII event than I did before. According to Variety , Dunkirk will feature unknowns as the lead players but with backup by Nolan stalwart Tom Hardy and Kenneth Branagh. It will be produced by long-time partner and wife Emma Thomas and distributed by Warner Brothers in July 2017 and will be shot in IMAX. Could this be Nolan’s Saving Private Ryan? Let’s hope so come early 2018.

Well, it seems that rather than making a new Halloween film , Dimension Films, the guardians of Michael Myers for the past twenty years, have been stripped of their power. The Wrap reports that Dimension Films is no longer in the Michael Myers business and that Marcus Dunston and Patrick Melton are no longer involved in the production of the presumably dead-in-the-water Halloween Returns . Returns would have reportedly either taken place following Halloween II (not Rob Zombie’s) or found Myers on death row. Or both! But now neither. I can’t say I’m too broken up about it. Under Dimension’s reins, the Halloween films were very hit-or-miss, with the hits meaning not completely terrible and the misses being Halloween: Resurrection . Perhaps, it’s for the best now that little Mikey Myers finds a new home to play in.

Films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe are quite fun and generally well-regarded. And then there’s the duo of Thor movies which, while not bad, are nowhere near as endearing or entertaining as the original Iron Man or Captain America: The Winter Soldier . But the Hulk may be just the perfect plan to give Thor his own breakout movie. News that Mark Ruffalo would be joining Thor’s third solo adventure, Thor: Ragnorak was greeting with cheers amongst the internet as the duo’s playful bantering, and hitting, was among the high points of The Avengers films. Ruffalo sums up the new film as such: “I don’t really know that much about it, but I think it’s going to be a buddy picture with Thor and Bruce Banner,” Ruffalo said. “I think they’ll probably fight. There’s no doubt, everyone wants us to fight at one point.” As drab and ultimately forgettable as the previous Thor films were, this seems like a sure-fire way to make this one stand out. Everyone loves a fight between a god ...

According to Deadline , the powers that be are planning The Mist to be a weekly endeavor. It’s funny that I just watched the film with my son this weekend, to which he threw the remote in anger due to the ending. The overall gist sounds the same with a strange mist rolling into a small town filled with god-knows-what and presumably the plucky cast of characters who have to face it all. While I’m not sure that The Mist would be a suitable candidate for TV adaptation, it certainly sounds intriguing enough. Hopefully for some, there won’t be such a downer ending.

After the news of Michael Myers’ triumphant return in the stupidly titled “ Halloween Returns ,” Myers’ contemporary slasher villains are not going to sit on their laurels. I wonder where the saturation point of dredging up old 80s and 90s franchises will land but apparently not here as both Freddy and Jason have rumored continuations in the near future. A Friday the 13th series is apparently in the works at the CW which will feature the masked zombie/undeadish thing rather than whatever that anthology bullshit was that the previous series tried to pass off. According to IGN , the series will take place around the infamous Crystal Lake that “takes a more “sophisticated” approach as a horror/crime thriller.” There is also talks of gritty and grounded. To that I say: how the hell can one make Jason Voorhees a gritty and/or realistic/ and/or grounded character considering he’s been dead for about seven movies? The series will apparently focus on a detective searching for his ...

After a silly tiltle, some inspired casting, and a “meh” trailer, new images have emerged for Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice to remind people it is still happening. Entertainment Weekly brings us looks at the aforementioned inspired casting of Ben Affleck and Jesse Eisenberg as Batman and Lex Luthor respectively and ... not much else except for the preppy/hippy vibe I’m getting from Eisenberg ... and a mosh pit forming around Supes ... and a dance scene between uneasy allies and/or frenemies that seems ripped from just about every other action film (including the last Batman movie!). Click through for the rest and don’t let news of Affleck’s divorce get you down. Let’s just see how well this film goes before we see how much we feel sorry for him ... and Superman.

Ah, Monopoly. American’s favorite pasttime of ruined furniture, hurt feelings, and deep psychological scars is finally (FINALLY!) coming to a multiplex near you. Yes, a real movie of Monopoly. From Lionsgate’s PR-friendly proclamation, Hasbro and Lionsgate have apparently blackmailed decent-enough writer/director Andrew Niccol into heading the project which will follow a curmudgeonly old man around who forcibly evicts people from their homes and dispatches the into debtor’s prisons for approximately four hours. No, just kidding. The story centers on a boy from Baltic Avenue who uses both Chance and Community in a quest to make his fortune, taking him on a fun, adventure-filled journey. It’s about making your own luck, what makes you truly rich and, of course, avoiding Jail time! No word on how Hasbro and Niccol plan to incorporate beauty contests, free parking (yes, it’s a thing!), or damn construction costs into the story to effectively portray the soul-sucking that occurs ...

Tom Cruise has proven in his accelerated, but still good-looking, age that he is up for anything. Anything meaning climbing the tallest building in Dubai, holding onto a plane in middair, and even starring in a sequel to a movie that wasn’t that great to begin with from almost 30 years ago. Producer David Ellison spoke to Collider recently about the status of the long-threatened Top Gun sequel which will now feature MOAR TOM CRUISE saying, “ [t]here is an amazing role for Maverick in the movie and there is no Top Gun without Maverick, and it is going to be Maverick playing Maverick. ” I guess this means no more Taylor Lautner taking over the reigns from Senor Cruise as was previously rumored but also no cameo from Anthony Edwards who probably could use the work. The film is supposed to focus on the plight of fighter pilots in the face of the now trendy drone pilots and probably some dog-fighting between Maverick and some “hot-shot” behind a arcade stick. And it will be in IM...

With this week’s Terminator Genisys coming out to a host of potential and a good early word of mouth, of course the conversation has turned into making more money. And of course, Terminator is in talks to have a TV show spin-off. But wait? Wasn’t there a Terminator series already? One that was critically lauded and beloved by fans cut short by a writer’s strike and ended its short run with a cliffhanger? By god, you’re right! That was Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles! According to Skydance CEO David Ellison, a new TV series is in the development stages and of course will tie into the larger Terminator franchise as is the norm for just about every damn property these days. The dream for us would be to be able to obviously make films, television shows, we have a video game with Glu, comic books, and they all should be standalone experiences. If you just watch the movies or if you just watch a television show, it’s a complete experience. Of course, expanding popular ...