Why do I loathe Solo so deeply? It’s not just that it’s a bad movie, though it is.
It’s not just because of the intrusive insertion of <CURRENT THING> politics, though that didn’t help.
It’s not just because of the many trite origin “explainers” the writers put in (The gun! The dice! The name!), those are common to many such movies in the modern day.
They made Lando—LANDO FREAKING CALRISSIAN—into a pervert who has sex with a robot, and not a sexy, organic Number Six Cylon robot, but the metal-and-wires toaster oven L3-37.
(Leet. They called it l337.)
Number 6. Beauty.L3-37. WHAT THE HELL MOVIE
Look at the pictures. HOW DOES THAT EVEN WORK. WHERE DOES HE… HOW DOES HE EVEN… no. I’m not burning brain cells thinking about this, because clearly the writers of the movie didn’t.
They turned Lando into a pathetic joke and LAUGHED AT YOU, ME, ALL OF US WHILST DOING SO. It was a character assassination.
Well, the sequel to the non-continuity Joker movie from 2019, Joker: Folie à Deux, is coming soon.
Teaser trailer in 3… 2… 1… !
No hint as to what the music will actually be like, so there’s no hint as to whether or not it’ll be any good. It’s a big risk either way, which is rare enough in Hollywood to applaud the director for going there.
Marvel’s Phase 4 was notoriously a disaster. Ant Man and the Wasp Quantumania, the start of Phase 5, was a massive bomb (part of Disney’s 2023’s $1.5 billion red ink bloodbath). Then Jonathan Majors, the face of the villain for Phase 5 had some… troubles, meaning the whole Kingdom of Kang storyline had to be aborted entire and most recently the actor for Namor got hit with (essentially) the exact same accusations.
Things are not going well.
So, in an effort to get the studio back on track, Marvel is ginning up the hype machine to announce all the actors for the upcoming Fantastic 4 movie!
At least Eddie’s back.
So, according to Marvel the film (set in the 60’s, perhaps in the wake of Deadpool and Wolverine’s teased “reset” of the MCU) will focus on Sue Storm as the main character, with the other members of the team also being there. The villain is Galactus, actor currently unknown, and the Silver Surfer is played by Julia Garner.
Because of course he is.
It is, in this day and age, a bold decision for Marvel to look at the vast wasteland of its once-thriving cinematic output, assess the strategies that brought it to this point, really internalize exactly what destroyed audience interest and decide to keep doing the exact same thing.
I mean, why do what the audience wants you to do, when you could… just not?
Hollywood is in a Depression. 20% of film executives have lost their jobs, shows being produced for streaming services have been cut by 50% IN ONE YEAR, and last year’s box office returns were so bad they had to invent a new term to describe them: the Flopbuster.
And they’re not the only one. Comics is collapsing, the Video Games industry is shrinking fast, and TTRPG publisher Wizards of the Coast just went through another brutal round of layoffs.
In a time of economic downturn, which we are most certainly in, entertainment industries usually thrive. All these industries are shrinking because they have forgotten how to produce stories and games that audiences want.
Instead of entertaining, they are lecturing, and have been for a long time, and it’s finally coming back to bite them in the bum.
Film Threat has some more thoughts:
Making stories that resonate with audiences isn’t hard—all you do is have to know how to live like a human being—but the people ruling these industries just can’t do it. And until new companies spring up to replace these, the companies and industries will continue to suffer.
Geek Gab 