F4nt4stic Four Tr4iler Re4ctions (That's annoying, right!?)

Well, the Fantastic Four (Fant4stic!?) trailer has finally dropped and it surprised everyone that it looks set to be an actual film with a proper release date and all. Before now, we have basically heard nothing about the film or seen any sort of footage – you know, apart from the rumours of Josh Trank getting ridiculously blazed on the set which, coincidentally, is what I would do if I found myself working for Fox. We had a cast and a release date, and that’s it but now we have a trailer.

Ignoring the fact that the trailer treads the age old superhero trailer path of slow music, foreboding narration and a little tease of the heroes, I liked the trailer – it peaked my curiosity enough that I’m excited to go and watch this film in the Summer. The film has a strong cast behind it with Kate Mara, Miles Teller and Michael B Jordan all impressing with their recent work in TV and Film – you would be hard pressed to find a better trio of young actors rising through Hollywood at the moment. Plus the film looks beautifully shot, if not slightly Interstellar-y, so I am excited to watch Trank’s finished product.

That doesn’t mean I’m totally sold on this reboot. The official description of the film starts off with “a contemporary re-imagining of Marvel's original and longest-running superhero team” which fills my head with all sorts of images of ancient Fox Execs huddled in a board room writing down what they think the kids of today like, and that fills my heart with dread. Nothing says cool and hip like Hollywood trying desperately to talk street and pretending to like rap music. All this boils down to the fact that I’m worried that Fox are going to detour too far from the source material which may give us a good sci-fi film that will result in an awful Fantastic Four movie.

It’s also extremely worrying that we have had to wait so long to see any footage of the movie at all. My instinct tells me that the producers didn’t have enough confidence in the footage that they had previously to release it to the public – we are now 7 months from release and we have only just had our first trailer, the marketing guys have a real job on their hands to get people hyped up for the Fantastic Four in such a short amount of time.

To be honest, even if the trailer was bad, I was going to watch Fantastic Four but now I’m going to go in to the cinema with a little bit more hope – well, at least with more hope than I will have for the next Amazing Spider-Man. Seriously Sony, fuck you.

North Korea 1 Hollywood 0

Wow, now I did not see that coming. Sony has canceled the Interview, starring Seth Rogen and James Franco, with no clue as to whether the film will actually ever get released. This comes in the wake of the Sony hack that gave us the knowledge of that potentially phenomenal Spider-Man news but the hackers weren’t happy with just potential, they demanded that Spider-Man return to Marvel immediately and have threatened to take extreme action if their demands aren’t met.

Wait, that doesn’t sound right. I think it’s something to do with North Korea being a little peeved about The Interview’s portrayal of their great and powerful leader, Kim Jong-un. They also aren’t overly happy with the films central plot to assassinate Kim Jong-un for the good of the world or some shit, and have threatened action against the moviegoers of America if they choose to watch this abomination!

This is a dangerous precedent with the censoring of freedom of speech and creative integrity and all that jazz, coming under scrutiny. It sends a message to the whole of Hollywood that if you are well organized and half-decent with a laptop, then you could pretty much shut down any film that rubs you up the wrong way. I am personally thinking of taking an advanced computing night class in an effort to take down Terminator Genysis on the grounds that if you can’t spell genesis right, you don’t deserve to make another Terminator film.

Not only has Sony’s decision have paved way for Americans to remind us that they are American and they won’t stand for un-American things, but other studios are following suit with Steve Carell’s upcoming North Korean comedy also being cancelled as well as Paramount refusing to let any theatres show Team America as a replacement for The Interview. I mean, come on Kim Jong-un, your Dad was cool with Team America in all of its awesome, depraved puppet glory! Why won’t you let us watch Seth Rogen try to kill you for 90 minutes!?

There has been a lot of criticism of Sony, calling their actions cowardly and un-American (they are a Japanese company after all), but Sony were up against the major theatres of America, who didn’t trust that the safety of their customers who went to see The Interview was guaranteed. Here’s the thing, if Sony feel like they can’t keep people safe by releasing The Interview then they probably made the right call in cancelling the release for the foreseeable future.

People will end up watching this movie, whether Sony have a change of heart or decide to sell the distribution rights or even if the film just gets leaked on BitTorrent. People will find a way to watch The Interview, the only real loser in all of this is Sony, so normal service resumed I suppose.

Alex A.

Is Spidey Coming Home?

Who would of thought that a controversial film released by Seth Rogan and James Franco would start a chain reaction that would give us our most exciting piece of Spider-Man news since the train wreck that was Amazing Spider-Man 2. Yes, those North Korean hackers are wrong to do illegal hacky things to Sony but how much can we really complain when we were given the knowledge that Spider-Man COULD join the Marvel cinematic universe?

If I’m going to be blunt about Sony’s multiple takes on Spider-Man then I would say that they have only delivered one great movie out of 5 attempts – Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2 was a true showcase of how to do our favourite web head. If there is one company that I would completely trust to take Spider-Man forward in the right way, it would be Marvel (they could make a good video game movie for Christ sake) but does their icon appropriately fit into their interlocking universe?

The logical entry point for the wall-crawler is Captain America: Civil War, with Spider-Man playing a huge role in that comic book storyline but how would this translate on to the big screen. The comic book dealt with superheroes and their secret identities, with Peter Parker removing his mask to the world in support of Iron Man, but that doesn’t fit into Marvel Cinematic Universe seen, as there are no secret identities. If the storyline is boiled down to just superhero registration then how does Spider-Man fit into this film without coming off as forced and gimmicky?

And for that matter, if Marvel were to retain creative rights for Spider-Man, what would that mean for the lesser-known characters of this universe? If Marvel had rights to Spider-Man from the beginning, would we have films like Guardians of the Galaxy with Marvel not needing to reach into their deep lore for movie inspiration? How many more great, risk-taking movies could we be denied if Spider-Man returned home?

To be honest, I’m just playing devil’s advocate, and the notion of Spider-Man making an appearance in the Marvel Cinematic Universe makes me all kind of ‘I need a new pair of pants’ excited. Don’t fuck this up for me Sony, do the correct thing and give Marvel the rights because I swear to god, we are done if you make that Aunt May solo film.

Alex A