TJ may be a day late getting this episode out, but he’s going to give you the news of the week anyway. Starting off the week we learned that ‘Batman vs. Superman’ has been pushed from 2015 to May 6, 2016. Given how crowded 2015 is, this doesn’t really seem like that bad of a thing. Jamie Alexander will appear on ‘Agents of SHIELD” in her role at Sif which seems exciting. The upcoming James Bond films will build on what happened in ‘Skyfall’ and this also seems like a good thing since ‘Skyfall’ is obviously the best of the three newer ‘Bond’ films. JJ Abrams says the ‘Star Wars VII’ script is done and they will be shooting the film on actual film stock. Federal agents removed a man from the theater and treated him like a criminal because he was wearing Google Glass. This is an extreme miscarriage of justice and an overstepping of bounds. Not to mention that this situation highlights again just how out of control our copyright system is. The focus of this weeks’ reviews and ‘The MovieByte Podcast’ was ‘Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit’ — a passable film, but kind of disappointing. And it turns out that younger audience are paying no attention to this film. In the category of “sigh”, ‘Atlas Shrugged 3’ is moving forward, but just as with part 2, with an all new cast. How inspiring… And of course, find out what to see at the box office this weekend.
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The summer of 2015 just got a tiny bit less crowded. Variety reports that Warner Bros. has just pushed the Man of Steel sequel from July 17, 2015 to May 6, 2016. The new date pits the Zack Snyder-helmed film directly against an as-yet-unnamed Marvel Studios project, though in all likelihood one or the other will move before then.
The Lady Sif is making a trip to Midgard, and her journey will lead her straight to our favorite Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Talking to IGN, Logan said of the next Bond outing: “My goal is to write a great movie that’s appropriate, to build on what we did on Skyfall, but make it its own unique animal.
J.J. Abrams hit the Television Critics Association’s press tour Sunday to promote his upcoming NBC show Believe, and after his panel reporters pelted him with Star Wars: Episode VII questions. What did he say? Not much, but here’s what we got:
The script is done: “We’re working really hard and we’ve got our script and we’re in deep prep. Full steam ahead.”
Because I don’t want Glass to distract me during the movie, I turn them off (but since my prescription lenses are on the frame, I still wear them). About an hour into the movie (Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit), a guy comes near my seat, shoves a badge that had some sort of a shield on it, yanks the Google Glass off my face and says “follow me outside immediately”. It was quite embarrassing and outside of the theater there were about 5-10 cops and mall cops. Since I didn’t catch his name in the dark of the theater, I asked to see his badge again and I asked what was the problem and I asked for my Glass back. The response was “you see all these cops you know we are legit, we are with the ‘federal service’ and you have been caught illegally taping the movie.”
Over the weekend, the LA Times reported something that many had expected, but hoped not to hear: that the first major studio — in this case, Paramount — was going all-digital and ending distribution of actual, physical film prints. Though they didn’t announce it at the time, “Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues” was the last Paramount film for which 35mm prints were shipped (way to go out on a high?), while “The Wolf of Wall Street” became their first all-digital affair (an irony, given that Martin Scorsese is a passionate defender of old formats and old filmstock). It also feels significant that the last physical film and the first all-digital one from the studio are about wild 1980s businesses…but it probably isn’t.
This is not the Jack Ryan you may know from the books, and this is not the Jack Ryan you may remember from the four previous films. This film is a reboot and an origin story — because that’s what you’re supposed to do these days. I don’t think anyone over at Paramount could tell you exactly what motivated this film to be made other than the vague idea of hearing the ringing of the cash register as the ticket sales poured in. But unfortunately that sort of motivation does not usually produce the most compelling of stories.
A man walks into a theater with prescription lenses in his ‘Google Glass’ glasses and is “escorted out” for pirating. You can’t make this stuff up folks. This is crazy making right here. Long live the police state. In happier news, Carrie Fisher expects to start filming ‘Star Wars’ in March or April. It’s a rumor so take it with a grain of salt, but that seems about right for releasing sometime in 2015. TJ and Chad really just want to know if she’ll be sporting the Cinnamon Bun hairstyle again! It’s a sad day in film distribution as Paramount is now the first company to officially end film print distribution and go all digital. And of course, Chad and TJ have something to say about the Oscar nominees this year. Our primary review this week is of ‘Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit’.
Director Kenneth Branagh’s reboot, starring 33-year-old actor Chris Pine and in a bid to relaunch the series, opened to a soft $18 million over the long Martin Luther King Jr. weekend. More than a third of the audience was over the age of 50, while only 15 percent was under 25, according to exit-polling service CinemaScore. All told, 63 percent of the audience was over the age of 35.
Well, “Atlas Shrugged: Who Is John Galt?” is still an actual thing that is happening and the producers are continuing a trend that they started with the second film: bringing in an entirely new cast. For the final installment of the trilogy, John Galt will be played by Kristoffer Polaha (“Devil’s Knot”), Laura Regan (“Unbreakable,” “Mad Men”) will play Dagny Taggart, and the rest of the main cast includes Rob Morrow, Eric Allan Kramer, and Joaquim de Almeida. Production on the film has just begun and producers are hoping to release the film this upcoming September, right in time for the midterm elections.
Your choices for new movies this weekend are not looking great. In fact right now, the box office is feeling sort of empty in the new and exciting category. But that’s normal for this time of year. And don’t worry, there are still a few things hanging around for you to see. Plus, if any of you get around to seeing Gimme Shelter then please let me know if it’s worth it.