Unfortunately, Fox is not making an X-Babies movie. Yet. Instead, the studio is continuing the franchise with X-Men: First Class, a kind of New Mutants or Generation X-likespinoff that will probably capitalize on the risen stardom of Ellen Page, who played Shadowcat in X-Men: The Last Stand, rather than a reboot/origin story a la the First Class comic book. And with Josh Schwartz writing the screenplay, it should be like The O.C. and Gossip Girl, only with mutant superheroes.
No wonder Hollywood likes familiarity when the most original movie announced today is about “aliens invading Earth by traveling backwards through time and wiping out humanity — yesterday by yesterday — while one man stays a yesterday ahead of them, trying to convince the world that the end is coming again.” The Days Before might just have the most confusing sci-fi synopsis of all time.
Celebrity death cult where were you? Soul Men, featuring the final performance from Bernie Mac, underperformed over the weekend, placing only sixth with $5.6 million. I guess you preferred his other final film, Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, which achieved the best debut of 2008 for an animated film with $63.5 million. The other big opener was Role Models, which did better than expected with a second-placing $19.3 million. All thanks to Jane Lynch’s bagel dog trick, I’m hoping.
Despite YouTube video being possibly the worst format in which to watch movies online, MGM is licensing some of its titles (no 007 movies, unfortunately) to the site for full-length streaming.
Joe Johnston, who has a Best Visual Effects Oscar for work on Raiders of the Lost Ark, has been hired by Marvel to direct First Avenger: Captain America. And I’m probably the only one who’s now hoping the comic book adaptation is reminiscent of the Johnston-directed The Rocketeer.
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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