Egotistical actors, meddling executives, extras suffering panic attacks from beneath their prosthetic make-up – the new Sam Mendes-Armando Iannucci-produced comedy The Franchise is a fictional series inspired by real-life drama behind the scenes of superhero movies.

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Overall, the vibe is one of barely-contained chaos – a reflection, says showrunner Jon Brown, of the off-camera reality of the superhero industry.

“People think these movies are laid out in neat phases for the next 10 years. Then you hear about a set where, in the morning, a limo literally pulls up, the window comes down, and they hand out new script pages,” Brown explained. “Or producers on set have eight versions of the same script open, and they go through each script, cherry picking lines, and then they Frankenstein a scene out of nothing.”

The Franchise is watchable, though tremendously sneery of nerd culture – you can tell everyone involved is delighted superhero movies are on their uppers and that the day of geek in popular culture is at an end. But setting to one side such unfortunate snobbery, its portrayal of Hollywood anarchy is right on the money – as the following countdown of real-life superhero movie disasters confirms.

1. Marlon Brando v Superman, 1978
2. Batman & Robin – Mr Freeze’s Gun Vanishes, 1997
3. Wesley Snipes v Ryan Reynolds, Blade: Trinity, 2004
4. Superman Can’t Fly, 1996
5. Superman Returns takes to the skies without a script, 2006
6. Edward Norton, aka The Incredible Sulk, 2008
7. Elon Musk in Iron Man 2, 2010
8. Josh Trank v Fantastic Four, 2015
9. Jared Leto jokes around on Suicide Squad, 2016
10. Justice League v Henry Cavill’s Moustache, 2017

Archive

Archived at https://ghostarchive.org/archive/3mDNG

Star Trek: Section 31 will debut in January.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/18973376

Back in 2021, Universal Pictures, Blumhouse Productions, and director Scott Derrickson brought us an adaptation of the Joe Hill short story The Black Phone (check out our review HERE) that appeared to tell a complete story that would stand on its own… but the film was made on a budget of around $16 million and earned over $160 million at the global box office. So, on October 17, 2025, we’ll be getting The Black Phone 2. In a video that was shown to New York Comic Con attendees during the Blumhouse panel there, Derrickson said that he sees the sequel as a high school coming-of-age film.

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Derrickson wrote the screenplay for the first film with C. Robert Cargill, and Derrickson and Cargill have written the screenplay for The Black Phone 2 as well. They’re also producing the sequel with Blumhouse’s Jason Blum and Ryan Turek. The sequel will see the return of Mason Thames (How to Train Your Dragon) as Finney Shaw, Madeleine McGraw (Secrets of Sulphur Springs) as Finney’s sister Gwen, Jeremy Davies (Justified) as their dad Terrence, and Miguel Mora, whose only previous credit is The Black Phone, as Robin, a friend of Finney’s who was killed in the first movie. Ethan Hawke (Moon Knight) will be reprising the role of the child-killer known as The Grabber. One new addition to the cast is Demián Bichir of The Hateful Eight.

Blum told NYCC attendees, “When did movie did well, [I asked the filmmakers], ‘Can we figure out a sequel? Some directors say yes, some directors say no. Scott said, ‘Let me and Cargill think about it.’” Derrickson and Cargill eventually told him they could make a sequel if Hawke and the rest of the original cast could return. Blum said, “And that was music to my ears.“

Derrickson couldn’t make it to the Comic Con because he’s in pre-production on The Black Phone 2 in Toronto, but in a pre-recorded video that was shown, he said, “I didn’t really feel any obligation to do a sequel to The Black Phone, but I got excited by an idea that [author] Joe Hill sent me shortly after the release of the first film. And what I can also tell you is that in the same way that The Black Phone was a middle school coming-of-age film, this is a high school coming-of-age film.” He added that, “I’m hoping to make a film as good as, if not better than, the first one.“

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/18963399

When Godzilla Minus One hit theaters, no one could have seen just how big the movie would become. The project ushered in a new era for Toho as the Japanese company took Godzilla back to basics. With director Takashi Yamazaki at the helm, the movie has gone on to become one of the best in Godzilla’s history. Much of its success came on the back of its director, and now, it seems like Yamazaki is interested in revisiting the IP so long as he can remake a classic Godzilla film.

The confession comes from Yamazaki directly as the director appeared at New York Comic Con. It was there guests like Kaiju United got to learn more about movie monsters, and Yamazaki admitted he is interested in remaking Godzilla vs Hedorah.

“I think that for its time, Hedorah was a very cutting-edge kaiju. Thinking about the type of visual expression we can do with technology and how far it’s come today – I’m imagining how it would move, and I think that would be a really cool remake,” the director shared. And as you can imagine, the Godzilla fandom is now begging for Toho to greenlight such a movie for Yamazaki.

What is the most cherished movie from your early childhood? Probably not The Warriors, Walter Hill’s fierce thriller about New York gang battles. But as Lin-Manuel Miranda says with a grin: “Our friend’s older brother had the VHS …” Which is how four-year-old Miranda found himself watching the film that, 40 years later, the Hamilton composer has turned into a musical concept album with playwright Eisa Davis.

He describes the nefarious mood in the room as the video played. “Here’s something you’re not supposed to be seeing. But let’s watch it. This is what New York is really like at night.” The cult 1979 film follows a Coney Island clan on a hair-raising journey home from the Bronx after being falsely accused of killing the leader of the city’s biggest gang. They encounter “every fear you’re supposed to have as a New Yorker” says Miranda. “Falling into the train tracks. The wrong cop on the wrong night. Stepping into the wrong neighbourhood at the wrong time when some shit that has nothing to do with you pops off.”

The film is propelled by a rock soundtrack with suspenseful synths, as well as songs like Nowhere to Run – played “for all you boppers out there” by an enigmatic DJ. It was adapted from Sol Yurick’s 1965 novel (itself inspired by Xenophon’s ancient epic Anabasis, about a Greek army’s homeward odyssey) and Yurick referenced rock’n’roll, the Beatles and pachanga music throughout his tale.

The album was created in the same mould as Jesus Christ Superstar and the Who’s Tommy, which were both released as LPs before becoming stage musicals. The former was “a north star for us”, says Miranda.

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Miranda’s chief change was to make all the Warriors female, a decision inspired by the Gamergate incident in 2014, which he sums up as “terminally online dudes doxing women who dared to like video games”. That misogynistic behaviour reminded Miranda of the “malignant chaos” in the film that’s caused by Luther shooting Cyrus, the city’s almighty gang leader who was proposing a truce among the tribes; Luther then blames the Warriors. Miranda and Davis’s gang share a sisterly solidarity as they essentially reclaim the night. Cyrus is now female too, played by Lauryn Hill.

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The big question is: will Miranda and Davis’s Warriors get all dressed up and hit the stage? Miranda thinks back to when Hamilton tickets were gold dust. With the album of The Warriors, he says, “you’re not getting the soundtrack to a show you can’t see. You are getting the thing we made. That feels enormously gratifying.” But he admits a theatrical version would be “enormous fun”, and they are open to the idea. All you boppers out there: The Warriors’ journey surely won’t end here.

Fans customized the Wicked movie poster to more closely match the original Broadway poster.

Original Broadway Poster:

Movie poster:

Some fans, disappointed by the poster, altered it to be closer to the original, moving Grande’s hand and lowering the brim of Erivo’s hat to cover her eyes. The edits prompted Erivo to respond. “This is the wildest, most offensive thing I have seen

“None of this is funny. None of it is cute. It degrades me. It degrades us,” Erivo continued. “The original poster is an ILLUSTRATION. I am a real life human being, who chose to look right down the barrel of the camera to you, the viewer… because, without words we communicate with our eyes.”

So, this seems like a completely reasonable reaction to fans making fan content.

My kids haven't seen Close Encounters of the Third Kind yet and I thought it would be a fun surprise to recreate the meal eaten in the mashed potato scene and watch the movie with the movie dinner. (I can't wait to see if they put two and two together when that scene comes up lol.)

Obviously there's mashed potato. And I can see sweet corn. Kids are drinking milk. But I can't tell what the little meat things are. I assumed they were crumbed rissoles but having not been raised or lived in the US, I'm unsure if I'm missing a common protein that was eaten at dinner around the late 1970s. Meatloaf has also been suggested but in my country we never have mini meatloaves that I've seen so I'm unsure how accurate that is.

EDIT: Middle bottom, you can see a partially eaten meat thing which looks pink inside:

I also can't tell what is in the bowls beside Roy and his sons - to the top left of Roy's plate, right hand side of Toby and top right of Brad's plate. Maybe Ronnie and Silvia have one of these bowls too but I can't tell. You can see Brad eat out of his bowl at one point and it looks like something pale (I wondered coleslaw or macaroni).

EDIT: Screenshot of side

Anyway, anyone know or have an idea of what the little meat things are and what are in the side bowls?