Goodbye 2019

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Alright. It's the end of the decade, but not the end of the news on this. Thomas Townley. Hello everyone and welcome to the last episode of the year. I would I would add of the decade line, but I haven't been broadcasting all decades, so well, we know. Uh I could have just gone ahead and just not done a new episode. I even contemplate it, but uh, you know, a lot of vacations. Take the take the break between Christmas and New Year's. But it's just not me, you know. I'm just not the kind of person to want to take a break, even though I probably should. I would like to thank you for listening to my words today. 2020 looks like it's gonna be a busy year. Lots of new movies, new show ideas, you know, in the offing and so forth. You know? Who knows? Maybe 2020 I'll create a second podcast. I don't know what when I have time for that, but of course, uh, you know, you can always help me out with this podcast by showing me some appreciation by donating money, tweeting, uh, tweeting me out, etc. You know, let's just resolve to have a good 2020 and be sure to uh think about your decisions, whether, you know, at home, in a voting booth, anywhere else. And let's get on with the news. And thanks to the uh Marine Corps band for the uh music right there.

Star Wars

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Star Wars news. I'm gonna admit right now, there's not really a ton of Star Wars news right now. Uh most of the news that comes out about this time is things about in and around the rise of Skywalker, which I haven't seen. So I'm kind of avoid avoiding the spoilers right now. I'll be seeing it, but just not till after the first of the year, but there are a few good news items. To start off with, since uh it's a new year and you might want to drink a nice cocktail to celebrate. How about a cocktail from the Mandalorian star Pedro Pascal? The actor shared a picture of a green cocktail with two lime wedges for ears and what look like prunes for eyes on Instagram with the uh quote to getting through the holidays with a little bit of force. Good luck, everyone. Now, what his cocktail has been made of is, well, anyone's guess, and there are probably a few dozen permutations of a baby yoda cocktail on the internet. One version served at the Golden Tiki Bar in Las Vegas, according to the Las Vegas Review Journal, has rum agri agricole, demora syrup, and fresh lime juice, finished with a spritz of absinthe, and Luxardo cherry eyes and lime wedge ears. You know? He has a sense of style. He's got bar napkin jelly robe tied with a piece of twine and a bar sa bar straw lightsaber. So if you want to try one, I guess you could fly to Vegas or figure it out yourself. You know, drink at your own risk. It could be evil. And uh speaking of the child, I bet you think the lack of merchandise is particularly evil. Well, blame Donald Glover for the lack of merchandise for Baby Yoda. The Mandalorian star John creator John Favreau says that a conversation with Donald about Beyoncé during the Lion King remake convinced him to be more reserved. Speaking with the Hollywood reporter, he said, quote, We were talking about music and pop culture, and he was saying that what people really like now is to be surprised because it doesn't happen that much. When Beyoncé did an album, she would just put it online and everybody would react to it. Just putting it out there spurred a conversation that would become more viral and bring more genuine attention to any than any marketing. Now Disney right now is going full speed ahead with merchandise for the character named the child, including dolls, Funko Pops, and t-shirt. However, the slowness to get on the sales bandwagon might have cost Disney around three million or so, and uh they've but uh of course uh they've made that in a couple of hours of showings of the rise of Skywalker, and you know, it's not like Disney's hurting for money. By the way, pre-orders for the Blu-ray of the Rise of Skywalker are available right now, including a 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray set of the entire nine film saga on 27 discs that will retail for $249. No release date has been officially announced, but it's guesstimated to come around the end of March. Now, you may have noticed in the in The Rise of Skywalker that Kelly Marie Trans Rose Tico was barely in it. Now, don't believe you know the haters online that say her character was disliked and that's why she's not there. Instead, it was just a matter of her original role in the film being cut down. Chris Terrio, the writer of the Rise of Skywalker, explained to Awards Daily, quote, well, first of all, JJ and I adore Kelly Marie Tran. One of the reasons that Rose has a few less scenes than we would like her to have has to do with the difficulty of using Carrie's footage in the way we wanted to. We wanted Rose to be the anchor at the rubber base, where uh where Leia was. We thought we couldn't leave Leia at the base without any of the principals whom we loved, so Leia and Rose were working together. As the process evolved, a few scenes we'd written with Rose and Leia turned out to not meet the standard of photorealism that we'd hoped for. Those scenes unfortunately fell out of the film. The last thing we were doing was deliberately trying to sideline Rose. We adore the character, and we adore Kelly, so much so that we anchored her with our favorite person in the galaxy, General Leia. Never fear, fans, the Mandalorian will be back. Creator and showrunner John Favreau has confirmed on Twitter that the Disney Plus series will launch in the fall of 2020. Rumors are that several established Skywalker Saga characters will make appearances on the show. Now, let's uh

Star Trek News

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get some Star Trek news. Now, the only reason for me to get CBS all access is almost here. Star Trek Picard is just a few days away, and there'll be plenty of supplementary material to go with it as well. The comic book series is out right now, and in February comes the book Star Trek Picard, The Last Best Hope by Una McCormick. Much like the comic book, there is another prequel to the series, and this will introduce some of the characters that we'll see in the show. Now, no word on the exact plot of the book, but it will be in out in just three days before my birthday, on february eleventh. Hand hint.

unknown 8:36

Buy me stuff.

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Nah. Anyway, uh meanwhile, that other st that other show, Star Trek Discovery, might be closer to his third season premiere than we first thought. Senequa Martin Green, speaking with RadioTimes.com, said of the third season, quote, It's definitely coming up, 2020, and I would venture to say closer to early 2020 than anyone. But yeah, it's gonna be incredible. I can tell you that. I think it's a stunning season. That's why it's so stirring to me, in like this moment right now, to talk about the beginning. That's what is so interesting to me to be where we are now, but to know where we came from. And I really think we did what all shows should do, and got bare with age and got bare with time. It's really quite gripping to see where we've come and how we continue to build and grow to higher heights and deeper depth. Unquote. Season three sees the discovery now in the far future, where there'll be no treble at all with established continuity. Pocketbooks is looking back at the untold era between The Motion Picture and The Wrath of Khan, with Star Trek The Higher Frontier by Christopher L. Bennett. The novel also contains also connects to the original series episode Is There in Beaut in Truth No Beauty? and features Dr. Miranda Jones and Medusin Ambassador. Here's the blurb. Quote Investigating the Massacre of a Telepathic Minority, Captain James T. Kirk and the crew of the USS Enterprise confront a terrifying new threat, faceless armored hunters, whose extradimensional power technology makes them seemingly unstoppable. Kirk must team with the powerful telepath Miranda Jones and the enematic Medusins to take on these merciless killers in an epic battle that will reveal the true faces of both enemy and ally. Unquote. The novel will be out on March 10th. IDW has released the Star Trek comic book listing for the for comics coming out in March. First up, they introduce us to the Mirror Universe Khan. Wait, wouldn't that be no? In Star Trek Hell's Mirror, the uh not only do we receive the return to the Mirror Universe, we are shepherded by J.M. DeMatis, who is returning to the Star Trek universe for the first time in 40 years. His last contribution was the final issue of Marvel's Star Trek series back in 1982. Here's the blurb. Legendary writer J.M. DeMatis returns to Star Trek for the first time in nearly 40 years, and it'll be well worth the wait as he tackles two of the franchise's most popular concepts, Khan Dunion Sing and the Mirror Universe. The book has art by Matthew Dow Smith and retails for $4.99. Also, from IDW is Star Trek Year 5, issue number 12, written by Jen Jackson Lansing and Colin Kelly, with art by Stephen Thompson. Now, here's uh what it what it's about, quote, at last, the moment you've been waiting for since the first page of issue number one. With a villain revealed, a stranded crew, and the ship on a collision course with total destruction, Captain James T. Kirk will have to face the biggest challenge of his life on his own. Written by showrunners Jackson Lansing and Colin Kelly, this is a perfect jumping on point before the second year of the series begins. It re retail for four for $3.99. You can pre-order and un let me say unquote. You can pre-order these and uh, of course, other comics from my comic shop and things from another world. We have links to those in the affiliate marketplace on the homepage. Now, uh not often do I get to speak of he who should not be named, but uh American President Donald Trump has created the United States Space Force when he signed a new defense budget into law. The newest branch of the military will be kind of a hand-me-down right now with a small staff of 200 military and civilians, mostly US Air Force, and will be under the aegis of the Air Force Department with a budget of forty million dollars. Tech entrepreneur Elon Musk seemed to praise this development by by qu saying, quote, two words. Starfleet begins, unquote. You know, I hate to tell you this, Elon. I don't think exploring space is what uh these guys exactly want to do. However, if they could, you know, take care of all the the garbage that's circling the planet right now, that would be a big help. Anyway, uh May the twenty-third will be a special day in the city of Bloomington, Indiana. A few episodes back, I told you about the fundraising campaign to get a monument erected in Bloomington, celebrating the fact that the city will one day be the future birthplace of Captain Catherine Janeway. The Captain Janeway Bloomington Collective met its goal of twelve thousand five hundred dollars and will be receiving a matching fund from the Indiana Housing and Community Development. So, on May 23rd, just three days after the fictional character's birthday, a bust bearing the likeness of Kate Mulgrew's character will be unveiled in downtown Bloomington. The bust will be on a limestone base shaped like the Starfleet Delta and include an informational tablet about the ca captain of the Starship Voyager. And that'd be kind of cool to actually, you know, see. However, I don't think, you know, that's in my budget. Anyway, let's get on with some geek news.

Geek News

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Viacom CBS now owns a 49% stake in Mirimax. They bought it from Mirimax owner, Qatar-based BN Media Group, for a total of $375 million. Viacom CBS will pay $150 million up front, and the rest will be in the 40 will be $45 million a year for five years in funds to produce new films and TV projects. Paramount will get an exclusive long-term deal for Miramax's back catalog. President and CEO of Viacom CBS, Bob Backish, in the statement said, quote, Miramax is a renowned global studio responsible for some of the most iconic films of the last three decades, including Pulp Fiction, Goodwill Hunting, Kill Bill, and more. This partnership with BN will be a unique opportunity to gain access to a valuable library, deepening our already substantial pool of IP at a time when demand for premium content is only accelerating. We look forward to working closely with the Miramax management team as we explore new ways to deliver its titles across a variety of platforms and create new compelling projects. Now, if they want to personally make me happy, release all of Kevin Smith's movies in high dev. That's all I want. Oh well. And new pulp new pulp fiction copy, I guess. You know, it's the end of the year, and that of course means lists. Lists and lists and lists. Now, Forbes has released a list of the highest paid YouTubers, and well, that's not me. That's not my friends over at sci-fi for me. You know, give them a try. Uh did you know we have a YouTube channel, by the way? Anyway, the number one on the list was Ryan Kaj, the uh nine-year-old kid behind Ryan's World. He has 22.9 million subscribers and has made 26 million dollars. Now, I guess I wonder what how the new FTC rules will affect his channel since I'm guessing most of his views are from kids. Now, also on this list is Dude Perfect, Anastasia Anastasia Radzinskaya, and PewDiePie, among others. Now, PewDiePie is apparently taking a break from YouTube and has also quit Twitter. Maybe he's decided to look at the world outside of just four walls. Uncharted has possibly lost another director. Director Travis Knight might be leaving Uncharted based on the video game series of the same name. Travis made his directoral debut last year with Bumblebee. Now, insiders are blaming this possible exit on scheduling issues, as actor Tom Holland has a Spider-Man movie that will be due out in July of 2021, and that production might push Uncharted back back away from the December 18th, 2020 release date. Tom Holland, of course, will be playing Drake in Uncharted, with uh co Mark Wahlberg co-starring as Drake's friend Sully. Now, The Rise of Skywalker has done very well at the box office, posting the second biggest domestic Christmas Day ever, and it's reached over half a billion by the day after Christmas. So let's uh take a look at the uh box office report and see what we got right now. Num you know, let's let's uh start down here at number 10. Uh number 10 is Richard Jewel, which has fallen from seven to ten. Uh bombshell fell from six to nine. Now here's what I want to point out. Cats. Last week, number four, this week number eight. Uh it's only domestically gross to 17.8 million dollars domestically. Um, right now, cats is looking to lose uh 70 million dollars. Yeah, this thing is a big bomb. Um uncut gems is uh number seven, up for number 15. Uh Knives Out just dropped one space from five to six. Uh New this week, Spies in Disguise uh shows up at number five. Little Women debu debuts at number four. That's very good. Uh Frozen 2 stays steady at number 3. Uh it's uh grossed in domestically 421.6 million dollars. It's up 30% over last week. You know, I'm guessing that this is people going to this you know after they've seen Star Wars. Uh Jumanji, the next level, has uh gone from number uh two to n well has stayed number two, I should say. Uh it's gross it grossed in last weekend thirty-five point three million dollars after uh you know after previously have you know being up there. Hold on a second. Um it's up thirty-three point two percent over last week. Again, I'm assuming this is people they've seen the rise of Skywalker, so they're going to go see something else. So uh it's gotten 175 million domestically. Now, of course, we gotta point out that the number one, of course, is Rise of Skywalker, which domestically has uh grossed 362.1 million dollars. That's an average of sixteen thousand dollars per screen. And that is dropped sixty percent from its debut. So even with a drop is sixty percent, it's still doing well. Now, internationally, worldwide by the way, number one film in China is uh is IP man for the finale. And number in Australia it's Jumanji. Anyway, uh domestically, let's see, internationally, worldwide, 725.5 million dollars for uh episode nine. Yeah. But uh it's still got a long it, you know, it won't it'll ne it'll never reach Avengers Endgame before, you know, the end of tonight, but you know, still pretty good. I'll I'll wonder what uh you know what total will be all together. But anyway, while since uh we're done there, let's uh take a look from uh beh going behind to what's coming in 2020. Uh on my birthday, it's f it's uh February 14th, will be Sonic the Hedgehog. Now uh I've got a list here coming out at the beginning of the year is the Invisible Man, Mo the uh live action remake of Mulan. Uh the new James Bond movie will be April 8th. The SpongeBob movie comes out on May 22nd. The new Pixar movie Soul comes out June 19th, Ghostbusters Afterlife on July 10th, and uh Bill and Ted Face the Music comes out August 21st. There's a new Godzilla vs. King Kong movie next year on November 20th. Uh there's a new Sherlock Holmes movie on on on next Christmas, so yeah. It looks like a good good movie year next year. Oh yeah, the new Dune film comes out December 18th. That will that will be a really interesting thing to see. Anyway, enough kind of rambling here. Uh that does bring us to the end of another sci-fi edition of Multiverse Tonight. Now uh be sure to check us out on social media. We're at Twitter at multiverse tom or also on Facebook and Instagram as multiverse tonight as well. And uh if you'd like to contribute some money, please visit mtpodcast.com to go to our uh coffee or Patreon as well, and be sure to visit multiverse tonight.com and check out our affiliate marketplace links, the link to our Tea Public store, show notes, and so much more. And if you're a subscriber, please be sure to share us with your friends. And if you're brand new to the show, thank you, and be sure to subscribe. You know, and if you want, leave us with some feedback, let us know how we're doing. You know. Special thanks to Shane Ivers for intro music and Lobo Loco for the outro theme music. Thanks for watching the sci-fi edition of Multiverse Tonight. We'll be back in two days next year with the comic book edition. Now, please exit the universe in an orderly fashion. Good night. Multiverse tonight is a production of Half Big Genre Productions for the last time this year, copyright twenty nineteen, all right preserved.