Month: January 2019

Promising news for the return of HE-MAN

First the news.. then the opining and whining:

“Iron Man” and “Men in Black International” scribes Art Marcum and Matt Holloway have been set to pen the “Master of Universe” reboot at Sony Pictures and Mattel Films.



That’s right.. the potential return of ADAM, SKELETOR, even maybe MAN-AT-ARMS and RAM MAN.. no clue on which of the hundred plus characters from the famous cartoon of so many of childhoods filmmakers would pick. The cast could be endless…

The SONY and Mattel dreams are risky..

Yes, the cartoon was a smash hit in the 1980s and the toy line was the best thing that happened to Christmases during the Reagan years, but will it transcribe into modern day 21st century success…?

The kids who loved HE-MAN were a little to grown up by the time the late 80s movie appeared in theaters where a young Dolph Lundgren appeared as He-Man and ruined it all..

That movie was such a failure! Such a misconception of art .. such an overwhelming box office blunder. No words could describe how unlike the cartoon it was. Even if the kids of that 80s were getting older, they still would have overwhelmingly loved a film that captured the spirit of the cartoon, Grayskull…and Eternia. This movie did not.
But that is also where this modern age could be the best time to go back to the past!

STRANGER THINGS and other shows on Netflix have capitilized on the kids of the 80s being in their 30s and 40s now, and yearning for the nostalgia of the past. Craving for shows that could capture the spirit of their youth, and their generation. They are buying up old pop culture and re-introducing it to their own kids.

Enter.. HE-MAN. This could be, potentially, the perfect time for a return to Eternia. 

….but new characters? They failed with Gwildor. So hopefully filmmakers would stick to the 80s script and not re-invent the wheel…..

WE love the concept of HE-MAN in theaters.. but we all so fear it equally…

NOT SO FINAL DESTINATION

GET READY! The year 2000 is about to come back to haunt you like never before.. remind you of death.. the falling logs. The crashing planes. The windows from high above ready to smoosh your body into oblivion.

From The HOLLYWOOD REPORTER this weekend, 
THIS:

New Line is gearing up for another trip with Death. The company is restarting its Final Destination horror franchise, hiring scary movie mavens Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan to pen the script. Final Destination proved to be a cornerstone for New Line’s horror business in the early 2000s. The first movie, released in 2000, set up the concept: a character has a premonition of a horrific and deadly event, cheats his or her own death and saves several other lives in the process, only to have Death, as a personified but unstoppable force, come for the survivors one by one.

Hard to believe that the year 2000 is already almost 20 years ago. This film has been one of the few from the early 2000s that stuck around in popularity, but at the same time shocking to think of how long it has been since this has been in theaters.

Will a reboot work? IS THERE A NEED FOR ANOTHER REBOOT of something that has not yet aged a full two decades? And finally… does Hollywood have a horror idea that isn’t something that the previous century created..? 
No on the final question.Unknown on the others.

Stephen King fans love newspapers…?

This is from an AP DISPATCH FROM MAINE:

A Maine newspaper that horrified author Stephen King by dropping its local book review coverage used his complaint to boost digital subscriptions.
King, who lives in Bangor, complained Friday about the Portland Press Herald’s decision to stop publishing freelance-written reviews of books about Maine or written by Maine authors and urged his 5.1 million Twitter followers to retweet his message.
The paper responded by promising to reinstate the local book reviews if 100 of King’s followers purchased digital subscriptions to the newspaper. It reached that goal late Saturday morning.
In a tweet announcing the subscriptions, the newspaper said, “You all are the best readers anywhere. Sincerely,” and “We love you Maine. We love you journalists. We love you newspapers.”

Take that Oscars! Kevin Hart wins the weekend box office

Kevin Hart’s “The Upside” surpassed expectations to open with $19.6 million in ticket sales according to studio estimates Sunday.

The strong performance of “The Upside” pushed Jason Momoa’s “Aquaman” to second place after the aquatic superhero’s three-week reign on top of the North American box office.

Over the weekend, “Aquaman” passed $1 billion worldwide.

Opening in third place was the canine adventure “A Dog’s Way Home” with $11.3 million.

‘Mass casualty’ drug overdose in Cali

Various sources reporting today; 

Police in Northern California responded to a “mass casualty overdose” situation on Saturday that resulted in one death and a dozen people hospitalized.

Authorities said that the incident was caused by exposure to the deadly opioid fentanyl, which also affected two responding officers, according to NBC News. 

Mike O’Brien, a police captain in Chico, Calif., said at a news conference that four of the victims were in critical condition

Superbug involved in Tijuana bariatric surgery infections showed concerning mutation

THE CDC warns:

The superbug that infected nearly a dozen Americans who recently underwent weight-loss surgery at a Tijuana hospital had a particularly nasty genetic mutation that set off alarm bells after patients began showing up in hospitals and doctors officers with painful wounds.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a travel warning this week, notifying the public that 11 Americans who traveled to Tijuana hospitals for weight-loss surgery had become infected with drug-resistant pseudomonus aeruginosa infections during their stays.

DEVELOPING..

The nostalgic homage to WWE past

Monday Night RAW featured a traditional ten bell salute to Mean Gene Okurland, the announcer who so many of us grew up hearing the voice of on Saturday mornings and pay per view events.. After the silence, the noise of the WWE live show was burst open by the REAL AMERICAN theme.. Hulk Hogan began his entrance, in character, into the ring..

The video from WWE:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4ewW7TZOsw&w=460&h=315]
One could wonder how many people in that event knew the Hogan theme as it began.. or did it take a little for the 1980s and 90s to come back to the mind.. 
As Hogan went through his WWE style eulogy for Mean Gene, he mentioned how angels on high are entering the WWE announcer into the gates.. how the Ultimate Warrior and the Macho Man are enjoying a match.. how Andre the Giant is officiating.. The names went on and the Hulkster’s words forced nostalgia for those good old days of wrestling to come rushing back.
Industry watchers know the level of change that Vince McMahan and Linda have brought over the years. Some would say wrought over the years.. The changes are abundant. From the old days of multiple federations across the East Coast into the WWF, before the animals rights group sued and the F turned into Entertainment.. just about when the Federation figured it was time to ‘entertain’ instead of pretend they were sports.. 
Hulk Hogan is still from that last breed of character that, in character, holds firm to the vitamin eating traditions of the Reagan Era.  When he was a cereal brand.. when he was a national figure during the late 20th century.
His image has been tarnished and his reputation dealt blows.. But his homage to Mean Gene was credible and his words were meaningful.. Yes, indeed.. so many big wrestling stars are in a match in the sky…. Flying high. Superfly.. 
Hogan’s the last of a dying breed..
Ten bell salutes in the WWE come early and often. So many wrestling perish of overdoses on drugs or alcohol, or overdoses on fame and fortune coupled with dreadful choices for their bodies and families.. 
It is almost as though the fame of professional wrestling is a curse within itself.. people who are not prone to fame are hit hard by the flashing cameras and even harder by the contracts and jobs that injure without Workers Compensation.
Their tortured careers brought us all laughter and cheers.. We clap and continue to root for the baby faces…
And miss Mean Gene, Gorilla Monsoon, Bobby Heenan, and all of the voices and personalities that somehow helped form us during the formative years..

The AQAUAMAN scene popular in China

“I’m thinking of all the crazy set pieces and all the cool visuals and all that,” James Wan tells The Hollywood Reporter. “I wasn’t even remotely close. They said, ‘It’s the scene where Amber [Heard] eats the flower.”

The scene in question finds Arthur/Aquaman (Jason Momoa) and Mera (Heard) in Italy, in search of Atlan’s trident. Mera is unsure of how to act amongst the surface dwellers, and in a market she ends up eating a flower as though it were a piece of fruit. Not one to make her feel out of place, Arthur follows suit and eats a flower as well. 

“When he is in her world, he’s the fish out of water. When she’s in his world, she’s the fish out of water. And it is about finding those moments,” says Wan, who notes he spends as much time working on the small human moments as he does on the set pieces. 

The film will warn more than $900 mil in global markets with more than $260 mil coming from the newest majority movie consumer: China