The news that Disney is buying Marvel for $4 billion has taken the entertainment industry by surprise. But while the deal itself came out of nowhere, it’s not too shocking that these companies would see the benefit of coming together. They each involve an enormous universe full of characters, stories and, most importantly, licensing opportunities. And at a time when original plot ideas are difficult to come by, this acquisition could mean a surplus of comic book and film synopses based solely on the possibilities of team-ups, battles and other crossovers between the Disney and Marvel worlds.
To give you an idea of where this deal could lead, we’ve come up with ten potential movies that we’d love to see come out of the Disney-Marvel relationship. Check them out after the jump. …Read more
As long as X-Men Origins: Wolverine is a success this weekend (and despite all its “bad luck,” it should do very well), Fox will follow it with another X-Men spin-off, this one detailing the back story of Magneto. Outside of that project, which has been in the works just as long as the Wolverine film, there’s interest in solo movies for Gambit, Deadpool and Emma Frost (White Queen), as well as a spin-off about the original X-Men team as students.
Recently, in another list, we called for an Origins film focused on the shape-shifting villain Mystique, for which we even suggested Brian DePalma to direct. That spin-off is still our first choice, but since there are so many great mutant characters in the Marvel Universe, we’d like to pitch ten more X-Men origin movies to Hollywood (not just to Fox). To go along with the studio’s idea of hiring an unqualified filmmaker (Gavin Hood) for the job, we also recommend a barely appropriate director for each film.
I didn’t want to say it on Monday, but the new trailer for Star Trek had me thinking of Muppet Babies. Thankfully, I wasn’t the only one. A friend over at the ReadJunk.com forum had the same idea. And a few other internerds have made similar connections by recutting the trailer to better convey how J.J. Abrams’ reboot is basically just Star Trek Babies. Or Star Trek Jr. Or Little Star Trek. It should be titled The New Star Trek — not because it’s a new start, but because it’s kind of like The New Archies.
The first recut I saw was over at Cinematical, where a video was posted fitting the Star Trek trailer to the theme song and opening credits style of the original Beverly Hills 90210. It was fine, though it stalled a little too much on the Zoe Saldana bra shot and featured too much footage from other films like Shaun of the Deadand Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. A few days later I saw the clip above, which carries out the same idea with the theme and opening style from Smallville. Due to the concept behind that show, this video seems more appropriate, though it still has its flaws. A few more characters/actors could have been given credits.
Now all we need is someone to actually do a mashup of the new Star Trek and Muppet Babies. And after that, we could also use one pegged to the newly announcedX-Men: First Class.
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.
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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