Eternal Problems

Tonight! Why DC projects get axed, My thoughts on Eternals and Chris Pratt now hates Mondays. All that and more on the comic book edition of Multiverse Tonight!

Welcome to Episode 150 of Multiverse Tonight!

Geek Shock Podcast https://geekshockpodcast.com/

DC

So… apparently the reason that we don’t have a New Gods movie from Ava DuVernay was Zack Snyder’s Justice League, maybe.  In a new interview on Sirius XM, director Ava DvUernay speculated quote "I loved New Gods, which is the project that got axed. The studio decided that they did not want to pursue a certain part of that comic world based on some things that were going on with another film in that world,``''So, before I even was able to kind of complete my script with Tom King, they axed it. But I already had two projects going." unquote 

So, let’s get this straight, because New Gods and Zack’s Justice League weren't in the same cannon, they axed New Gods. Boooooooo.

Speaking of Ava Duvernay, Naomi, the DC series she developed for The CW has a premiere date, the series arrives along with season two of Superman and Lois on January eleventh, the next night sees the return of Legends of Tomorrow and Batwoman.

Y the Last Man has been canceled by FX on Hulu. Sources tell The Hollywood Reporter that execs at FX had to make a decision on the future of the series by Oct. 15, which was the date that options on the cast of Y:TLM expired. It is not known at this time if another home can be found for the show, like HBO Max. Should a suitor for the series emerge, FX Productions would face the decision of selling library rights to season one as well as transferring ownership of the series or becoming a third-party content supplier — something that under Disney is considered a long shot given Disney’s push for vertical integration. So a revival seems to have little hope.

Jenna Dewan will reprise her SUpergirl role of Lucy Lane for the second season of Superman and Lois.Supergirl is ending it’s six year run this month.

Michael B Jordan’s Val Zod Superman HBO Max Project now has writers. Darnell Metayer and Josh Peters will write Val Zod, which is being produced for DC Entertainment and Warner Bros Television by Michael B Jordan's Outlier SOciety. Metayer and Peters most recently worked as writers on the upcoming film Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, and are  best known for projects such as American Snow and The Nola.

Aquaman Director James Wan has confirmed that the now cancelled Trench Spinoff was a secret Black Manta movie.Yahya Abdul-Mateen II's antagonist played a smaller role in 2018's Aquaman film, and will return in the 2022 sequel Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. Responding to a question on Instagram Wan wrote "I'll let you in on a secret, the canceled Trench spin-off movie was really going to be a secret Black Manta movie," unquote. THe show was cancelled alongside THe New Gods movie this past April.

MArvel

Eternals opening weekend started it out , of course, at the top of this past weekend's box office. However, it is a poor showing compared to previous movies in the current phase. Eternals brought in 71 million, that’s less than Black Widow’s 80.3 million and Shang-CHi’s 75.5 million. The film is also not doing well critically, getting Marvel Studios lowest ever CinemaScore and Rotten Tomatoes score. Eternals beat out DUne which is on its third week.

Eternals has been banned in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar after Disney refused to edit romantic scenes between Ben and Phastos. The Gulf region is still an area with homosexuality is deemed illegal, so it's not a major leap in logic to surmise that movie authorities of that culture wanted the LGBTQ+ inclusion in Eternals to be censored, while Disney knew what kind of major PR controversy could ensue if the edits were made.

Marvel is getting back in the short film game, the studio according to Co President and executive producer Louis D'Esposito will begin back the Marvel One-Shot mini movies that were added to the video releases of many of the early Marvel movies, the last one was 2014’s All Hail the King, that took place post Iron Man 3.  D'Esposito says in the new book The Story of Marvel Studios: The Making of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Quote "We're working on them," "It's just finding the time. And I have a couple earmarked that I want to do."

Disney Plus has added another movie from the Fox Studios part of the MArvel Universe. X-Men First Class is now out on the service. The Prequel was the only X-Men film not in the service. 

IF MArvel’s Hawkeye trailers have been giving you Buddy Cop or Die Hard vibes, it’s on purpose. Thel show, which takes place at Christmas time in New York a few months after the blip was reversed in Endgame, will tell the story of the retired Avenger teaming up with KAte Bishop. Bertie, half of the directing team of Bert and Bertie told GamesRadarPlus quote "[Endgame and Hawkeye executive producer Trinh Tran's] got her own strong opinions on things, but instinctively, she knows what feels right for the Marvel universe as well,"  "As we've all been seeing with TV, it's a bit about breaking the mold at this point, so Trinh was never about sticking to the old plan or sticking religiously to a character's backstory." "Hawkeye, for instance, is a little bit unlike we've seen him. But Jeremy was fully invested in this tone, so she's always been about the freshness of it." Hawkeye hits Disney Plus on November 24th.

Skydance New Media Partners is teaming with MArvel for a new Narrative Video Game. This will be the first project from the AAA studio, formed by Uncharted co-creator Amy Hennig and her producing partner, Electronic Arts veteran Julian Beak in 2019. The studio was launched with a focus on creating titles for traditional gaming platforms as well as emerging streaming services, with games designed to appeal to both seasoned and less experienced players. No word on what the game will be or involve.

James Gunn has officially announced the start of production on Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3, he tweeted quote "It's been a strange & long & at times challenging journey to get here, but the obstacles along the way have only made this moment more blissful. Back on set with my Guardians family for the first day of shooting #gotgvol3. Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3 will be in theaters on May 5, 2023.

Geek

South Park’s Trey Parker and Mat Stone spoke about their new ViacomCBS deal with The Hollywood Reporter, the pair signed a deal for 900 million dollars this past summer. The deal will see fourteen made for tv movies, the first of which, South Park Post Covid will air on Paramount Plus on Thanksgiving day. Trey said about the movie quote “It’s the boys dealing with a post-COVID world. They’re just trying to get back to normal,”. “So, it is like our show. We’re just trying to get back to normal.” THe Second movie will be out in December. Parker about the upcoming projects said quote “With Viacom, we realized we could make them as long or as short as we needed,” “And they then went and called them movies. They are the ones who said we are giving them 14 movies in seven years. All I can say is for me, personally, I am 52 years old, I have made three movies in my life. So you do the math.” Matt Stone added quote “We’re trying to make what’s on Paramount+ different from anywhere else, so hourlong made-for-TV movies is where our head is at. We’ll do two made-for-TV movies every year. They will be big, but they are not quite movie scale.” and as for how the show's stories will run in the future Stone said quote “We’re at where a lot of people are at, which is the future kind of sucks,” Stone says. “We would like to get back to where each week we can do something totally different. We tried to experiment with serialization. That had mixed results. And the past five or six years have been dominated by Trump, being political and the tonal change of society. And then the pandemic. We don’t want everything to be about the pandemic, but that is what is going on.” unquote 

Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo have signed on to star in the film adaptation of Wicked for Universal. Erivo will play Elphaba, while Grande will portray Glinda.

 The musical is a prequel to the Wizard of Oz.

To celebrate Disney Plus’ second anniversary, The streaming service is having a sale from November eighth to November fourteenth, new and eligible returning subscribers in the US and select countries can get one month of Disney+ for $1.99 by signing up on the Disney Plus Day hub. The special, limited-time offer is for the first month only, after which point the cost returns to the standard price of $7.99 per month. Disney also announced Monday the company will team with Target to host in-store activations on November 12 through November 14 in almost 800 Target stores across the U.S. Target shoppers will have the ability to sign up for the $1.99 Disney+ Day offer and receive special giveaways. As of July 3, Disney+ had 116 million subscribers worldwide.

TV writer and Producer Prentice Penny is partnering with Stranger Comics Founder Sebastian A Jones. Penny is launching a yet-to-be-named joint venture to identify and support new talent in the independent comic book world — functioning as an incubator and development lab for BIPOC creators and their IP to find inroads to publication and adaptation to other mediums. Jones and Penny have already identified two projects, David Crownson’s Harriet Tubman Demon Slayer and Jaycen Wise from creator Uraeus, both of which are already being developed for TV. Penny said quote “When Sebastian told me there’s so many independent comic creators of color that largely get ignored in the movie and television space, I knew that I wanted to help foster and produce content with these amazing creators,”  “I’m so excited with all the possibilities the joint venture can do. Having someone like Sebastian as a partner who has had amazing success in the independent comic space and someone like myself that knows tv and film, it felt like such an easy and natural fit. I can’t wait to dive in and find the next generation of BIPOC comic creators and get their work up on the screen.”Penny is no stranger to comics. The longtime TV writer, producer and director — who launched variety show PAUSE with Sam Jay in May and served as showrunner on outgoing HBO comedy Insecure alongside Issa Rae for five seasons — teamed with Jones to co-author comic title Niobe & Dura: Wrath of the Ancient #1 after a $127,000 raise on Kickstarter.

AEW Wrestler, Jon Moxley has compared Pro Wrestling to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, speaking with the Throwing Down with Renee and Miesha, the former champion told Renee Paquette, who by the way is his wife and Meisha Tate quote "In the 60s or 70s they were actually trying to fool people into thinking this was real. And bad guys and good guys couldn't ride in the same car or be seen at the bar together, the business was very protected," Moxley explained. "And you were actually trying to fool people into (thinking) these are real fights. That is not the case in 2021. There's real fighting, which is what you do, and there's this. And fans are very passionate about it, but nobody is being fooled into thinking they're watching a legitimate thing, that's a completely separate sport now. It's like the Marvel Universe. In real life, nobody can shoot f—ing spiderwebs out of their fingers or whatever. But in the Marvel Universe, there's a guy who can. That's accepted. So when he shoots somebody in the face with a spiderweb, Spider-Man, you totally accept it." unquote  Moxley has recently had to step back from wrestling and go into rehab for alcohol addiction. I think we all wish him the best of health and recovery.

Well you can’t escape Chris Pratt, the man is everywhere. Now he will be taking over the voice of everyone’s favorite lasagna loving orange tabby Garfield. Andrew Kosove and Broderick Johnson’s Alcon Entertainment is behind the new Garfield, which has been picked up for worldwide (excluding China) release by Sony Pictures. The script, written by Oscar nominee David Reynolds (Finding Nemo), is being directed by Mark Dindal (Chicken Little), with the duo having previously worked together on Disney’s The Emperor’s New Groove. Garfield has been in newspaper comics since his creation in 1978. He’s been previously voiced by Lorenzo Music in his animated tv series and Bill Murray in two early 2000’s movies.

Well three new inductees to the National Toy Hall of Fame were announced. American Girl Dolls, Risk and Sand. Yep, just plain old everyday sand, not any kind of special sand, just the stuff beaches and deserts are made of. Next year I expect lint to be inducted. The list of other finalists that were voted on this year, and not inducted into the hall of fame, included Battleship, billiards, Cabbage Patch Kids, Fisher-Price Corn Popper, Mahjong, Masters of the Universe, piñata, the Settlers of Catan, and toy fire engine.

And that brings us to the end of the comic book news. *Show Ender*

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