#BizTrends2018: Noteworthy films and film trends for 2018

My original article here.

10 Jan 2018

Welcome to my 2018 edition of trends in film. Let's get right into it.

A Star Wars Christmas 3.0

 
Disney has a plan to take some of your Christmas bonus money for at least the next 20 years. When it comes to the Star Wars franchise most of us are like, ‘shut up and take my money’. JJ Abrams gave us Episode VII: The Force Awakens in 2015 in his usual fanboy love letter style and then Gareth Edwards gave us a prequel to the original trilogy that we did not know we needed but boy, did we! 

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story answered the question of how the rebels got the plans for the Death Star and why it had such a stupid weak spot. We have yet to find out exactly how many Bothans died to get information on the second Death Star but we can’t have it all, now can we?



Now we have Rian Johnson’s much-anticipated Episode VIII: The Last Jedi currently showing in cinemas. After two years of everyone and their dog on the Interwebs theorising, we finally got the lowdown.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi is a worthy follow up

Let me say it right off the bat that Star Wars: The Last Jedi is a great movie and a worthy follow up to The Force Awakens. If you've been following any news about the movie, you'll know that there is a split between some Star Wars fans and film critics.

BY CHARLES SIBOTO 1 DAY AGO

May 25 2018 sees the release of the second Star Wars anthology in the form of Han Solo: A Star Wars Story. The film went through some rough patches with initial directors, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (21 Jump Street) getting replaced by Ron Howard (Inferno) midway through shooting. The actor from 2013’s Beautiful Creatures, Alden Ehrenreich was cast as Han Solo after an extensive search for exactly the right person for the role. 

Donald Glover is playing the other charming scoundrel, Lando Calrissian. Everyone’s favourite Khaleesi, Emila Clarke plays the female lead and Joonas Suaotamo reprises the role of Chewbacca for which he was a double in The Force Awakens. Thandie Newton, Woody Harrelson, Warwick Davis, Paul Bettany and Clint Howard are also in the cast.

Marvel v DC. . .Joking, it’s just Marvel (DC totally lost)

So much winning for Marvel every year. It’s like that time Donald Trump said: “We're going to win so much. You're going to get tired of winning." They went hard with Guardians of the Galaxy 2, Spider-Man: Homecoming and the oh-so-much-fun Thor: Ragnarok. When I first saw the trailer for Avengers: Infinity War and saw Thanos in action it hit me that we watched 17 Marvel movies to get to this point! That is one huge build-up.

Marvel kicks off 2018 with Black Panther on 16 February. The trailers look mad dope and, personally, I cannot wait to see some action go down in Wakanda. The big spectacle that is Avengers: Infinity War starts on 4 May and then they close their 2018 with Ant-Man and the Wasp on 6 July.

Anastasia Steele, Lara Croft, Deadpool, a T-Rex, Grindelwald, and Aquaman walk into a bar

That sure would be an interesting evening at that bar.

Hate it or love it, the 50 Shades franchise keeps on keeping on and Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele return on 9 February 2018 for 50 Shades Freed, the er . . . climactic finale.



The Tomb Raider video games got a much-deserved overhaul with a grittier feel and a Lara Craft that does not look like a pubescent boy’s idea of a woman. 16 March 2018 sees a Tomb Raider movie in the same style as the new video games with Swedish actress, Alicia Vikander (The Light Between Two Oceans) playing Lara Croft.

Our favourite fourth wall breaking merc with a mouth returns in Deadpool 2 on the first of June and we get to see Josh Brolin as Cable, another beloved and pretty badass Marvel Comics character.

On 22 June 2018, we get some dinosaur action with Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. Chris Pratt is still having a great go as Hollywood leading man material and is still one of the sexy Chrises.



The first dark lord of the Harry Potter world gets his day in the sun in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald on 16 November 2018. I put the first movie off for a long time but when I got around to it it was actually quite charming and I look forward to seeing Johnny Depp’s Grindelwald and a young Dumbledore, played by Jude Law.

For all of its faults, you have to like Jason Momoa’s Aquaman in Justice League. Dude’s got a lot of styles and gets his own movie on 21 December 2018. We hope it follows in the style of Wonder Woman and not Batman v Superman.

More highlights

There is loads more happening at movies in 2018 and I can’t cover it all but here are some more titles to keep an eye out for: Ready Player One, The Incredibles 2, A Wrinkle in Time, Pacific Rim: Uprising, The New Mutants, Ocean’s Eight, X-Men: Dark Pheonix, Mission Impossible 6 (these missions are clearly very possible) and wait for it . . . Mary Poppins Returns.



Here’s to a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious 2018 at the movies.

Deadpool Trailers

Seriously, you guys, I am freakin' super hyped about the Deadpool movie project! Since seeing footage last year and the shaky cam Comic-Con stuff I am on-board and I love how aware the project is of the past blunders with Ryan Reynolds and uses Deadpool's breaking the fourth wall shtick to poke fun at stuff like Green Lantern and how the Merc With a Mouth appeared with his mouth sown shut in Wolverine: Origins.

Fox has released the official green and red band trailers and both are just fun, especially how the green band trailer pokes fun at you for not just watching the red band version. The trailers also reminded me that I once liked DMX.

Here are both trailers and the trailer from yesterday with Deadpool narrating the debut of this official trailer. Sonic BOOM!

The Deadpool trailer trailer

The green band trailer

The red band trailer

Comic-Con 2015 Geekgasms

So Comic-Con 2015 has come and gone and as per usual we were teased with comicy goodness that had us salivating for more and now we have to wait for all that good stuff to come out. But being the industrious geeks we are we will spend the next few months speculating about every little detail in all the trailers we saw.

Here are some of the stuff I thought was cool and look forward to:

Well, Star Wars is obviously going to be the biggest deal for me because that's how my geekiness was born. I have a love/hate relationship with the old movies but I constantly returned to them and I always wanted more of the stories and often read up on all the non-canon lore to get my fix. The Phantom Menace is rather silly but I still watched the nonsense out of it and collected the posters and figurines. Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith were okay for me but the old movies were still the most fun, especially The Empire Strikes Back, I love that movie. Looking at this reel from Comic-Con it looks like The Force Awakens is really a labour of love for everyone working on the film. It also looks like J.J. Abrams and his team are making Star Wars fun again, which is great because that's what Star Wars should be. Nobody cared for Anakin's pained facial expressions, what when we had cool shit like Boba Fett, R2-D2 and Chewie dammit!

Marvel have become so big with their Marvel Cinematic Universe that they don't even need to bother showing up at Comic-Con anymore. This gave DC a great chance to show off some things they have planned and although it was not the best showing (they really should have gone bigger with Marvel not being there to hog all the attention) this trailer for Batman V Superman has me a little excited. Man of Steel was more of a miss than a hit and lots of people don't have much faith in the whole Batfleck situation but this trailer gives me some hope. Zack Snyder is good with the darker and more serious stuff, which is why Man of Steel didn't go down so well but add a Frank Miller, The Dark Knight Returns sort of Batman to the mix and maybe that dark tone can work. I love what Snyder did with Watchmen and the political stuff happening with Super Man in this trailer is very reminiscent of that. Then we also have Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman and we know Snyder is not the greatest with how he represents female characters so that could really go any way. I'm really hoping this one is good though, we deserve a good movie with Superman in it. Do good for us, Mr Snyder and crew.

Then there is Suicide Squad and from what I can see in the trailer I'm sold. I can roll with all this silliness. People seem not to be reacting so well to Jared Leto's Joker but I think it can work. Really, this whole thing looks so ridiculous that I can't wait to see it. I'm also pretty much cool with how the members of the squad turned out. Margot Robbie looks fun and sexy as Harley Quinn. Will Smith makes for a decent Deadshot and we have the wonderful Viola Davis as Amanda Waller. I have always thought that in a world of ridiculous villains Captain Boomerang is still quite silly but it works for him and Jai Courtney looks quite cool as the character. The way Adewale Arkinnuoye-Agbaje's Killer Croc looks reminds me of the character in Brian Azzarello and Lee Bermejo's Joker graphic novel. So, yeah, I'm pretty hyped about this one.

The official trailer may not be released yet but from the leaked versions floating around the interwebs Deadpool was probably the coolest thing at Comic-Con this year. I'll dare say that it was even cooler than Star Wars in some regards. The Merc With a Mouth has always been a fan favourite and it's good to see that it looks like 20th Century Fox will be doing right by him.

Those are my Comic-Con highlights and there were loads of other stuff to see and love that will be all over the interwebs by now. All I can say is cheers to the next few years of geeky goodness :).