Jan. 3, 2022

Your Friendly Neighborhood Betty White

Your Friendly Neighborhood Betty White

In this combined Sci-Fi and Comic Book edition of the show, Spider-man made billions, Retun of the Jedi gets preserved , Winnie The Pooh goes public Domain and we remember everyone's favorite Betty White. All that and more on this all in one edition of Multiverse Tonight!

Support the show (https://ko-fi.com/multiverse)

 Multiverse Tonight is a production of Half-Baked Genre Productions. Copyright 2022  All Rights Reserved

Transcript

Tonight! Spiderman makes all the money, Superman and Lois get all the villains, Return of the Jedi gets preserved, you can make your own cuddly bear named Pooh story and we remember Actress Betty White! All that and more on this edition of Multiverse TOnight!


Multiverse Tonight 154

Christmas

Thoughts on Spiderman No Way Home and Encanto, Book of Boba Fett

Thoughts on where the franchise is headed

Thoughts on Morbius trailer (ie Jared Leto, could this do big business because of)

Marvel

Spiderman Now Way Home is not just a billion dollar success, it is now SOny Pictures Highest Grossing Movie in History, beating out Spiderman Far From Home. It’s also now number ten on  the highest grossing movie list for the US and Canada, beating out TheDark Knight, The Lion King and Incredibles 2. It has a long way to go to number one, set by Star Wars Episode VII THe Force Awakens which has a lifetime gross of 936,662,225. Internationally it’s 12th  in the All Time Box Office List.

It was a Merry Christmas and then some for Peter Parker as the skyscraper-swinging superhero’s latest adventure, Spider-Man: No Way Home, soared past the $1 billion barrier at the global box office in just its second week of release. That makes Sony’s smash hit not only the fastest blockbuster to accomplish that ten-figure feat since 2015’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens, but also the first billion-dollar grosser worldwide since the pandemic began.But while Spidey was busy fighting crime (and raking in loot), the holiday’s slate of new releases—Sing 2, The Matrix Resurrections, The King's Man, American Underdog, and A Journal for Jordan—were left to divvy up the box-office leftovers with varying degrees of success. A week after becoming the first film of 2021 to rake in more than $100 million in its opening frame, No Way Home continued to rule the multiplex, crossing the billion-dollar benchmark in a mere 12 days. That pace puts the film in some pretty elite company—only two films have reached $1 billion in receipts faster: 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War and 2019’s Avengers: Endgame. But Spidey’s feat is especially impressive considering what’s going outside of theaters this winter, as the Omicron variant of COVID-19 continues to spread like wildfire. But apparently that appears to be just one more foe that Spidey doesn’t mind going up against.

https://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/2021W53/?ref_=bo_wey_table_1


Comic book artist Ryan "Bode" Bodenheim has died at age 44. Bodenheim frequently collaborated with writer Jonathan Hickman on creator-owned titles at Image Comics, including A Red Mass for Mars, The Dying and the Dead, and Secret. He's also known for his Valiant Comics work on titles such as Bloodshot, Ninjak, 4001AD, and Eternal Warrior. His Marvel Comics work included contributions to Black Panther. Recently, Marvel announced Bodenheim as the artist for the upcoming Eternals one-shot Eternals: The Undying #1, working with writer Kieron Gillen. Bodenheim is survived by his mother, Susan Avery, children Jack and Lily, and his brothers, David and Jonathan.

The deleted scene list has been revealed for the releases of Eternals, the scenes are

: Gravity – Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry) and Jack (Esai Daniel Cross) have a conversation that leads to a breakthrough.

Nostalgia – Sprite (Lia McHugh) and Makkari (Lauren Ridloff) reminisce about humankind while overlooking the ruins of Babylon.

Movies – Gilgamesh (Don Lee) and Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani) connect over movies while crossing the Amazon River with the rest of the team.

Small Talk – Sprite confronts Dane (Kit Harington) in the museum about his interactions with Sersi (Gemma Chan). Available on the disc versions of the movie will be Audio Commentary – View the film with audio commentary by Chloé Zhao, Stephane Ceretti, Mårten Larsson

Immortalized – Phase 4 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe launches into the cosmos with the Eternals. In this behind-the-scenes documentary, dive deep into the reasons why Marvel wanted to immortalize these superheroes for the MCU.

Walks of Life – Eternals unveils Marvel's biggest and most diverse lineup of Super Heroes in one film. Hear reactions from the cast on being involved in the film and the instant sense of camaraderie that was felt on the day they all joined each other in their costumes.

Gag Reel – Watch some of the hilarious mishaps of the charming cast and crew. Eternals will start streaming January 12 on Disney Plus and will come to disc on February fifteenth.

DC

The Batman will start streaming on April 19th and not a day longer according to confirmation from Warner Media CEO Jason Kilar, the CEO told Vox;s Recode that the movie will hit the streaming service 46 days after it hits theaters on March fourth. Quote "Think about when movies would show up on HBO, which is eight to nine months after theatrical premiere. The Batman is going to show up on day 46 on HBO Max,"  "That is a huge change from where things were in 2018, 2017, 2016." unquote 

Michael Keaton will get another chance to reprise Batman other than The Flash movie. Keaton will appear as Batman in the HBO original movie Batgirl. Plot details are sketchy at this time, other than the film centering on Barbara Gordon. Also announced to appear in the movie is J.K. Simmons as Jim Gordon and Brenden Fraser playing the villain Firefly. THe film has no release date, but is expected to appear in 2022.

Superman and Lois’s second season will apparently have multiple villains for the couple and family to deal with. Showrunner Todd Helbing said to SFX magazine quote "The fans are going to know the path we are going down really quickly,” “In a really good way, the Superman issue he has is driving the issues he has as a dad. This is a particular villain, that the more I talk about the more people are going to figure out who it is. But Superman is dealing with an enemy that is going to be a massive headache for him. 

"There are multiple villains, really," "Both villains affect Clark and Lois personally. We start out with one villain that is really more Superman, while setting up the Lois villain. They are not working together, but they hand off in a cool way this season. One of them comes to the forefront and, in a lot of ways, is more powerful than the other one. It will take the whole team, in a different way than last year, to stop this person." unquote 

Black Adam Producer Hiram Garcia would love to make a Kingdom COme movie. IN an interview with Collider, He was asked what his dream project was and he replied quote Look, I think the dream project that's something we've always spoken about at Seven Bucks, we would love to make someday, which is a tougher ambition due to, obviously, IP and rules and so forth, but always been obsessed with Kingdom Come, the Mark Waid/Alex Ross joint that those guys did. I think that storyline was always so compelling. We've always envisioned it as kind of an epic, multi-film saga. I think that's something we've always dreamed of being able to do. If there was ever a dream project, and not trying to start a fire where it's like we're gunning after that, because it's just pie in the sky, you'd love to be able to tell the story, and I always admired that story of the juxtaposition of old-school heroes versus new-school heroes and how they clash and a world so divided in terms of how they view what is justice now and what was it and what should it be. It’s always just always something very compelling in the big, cataclysmic mash-up of old versus new. That's something that, look, in a perfect world, we could do it, would love to do it.

Star Wars

Return of the Jedi has been added to the National Film Registry as part of the class of 2021. It will be joined by The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of The Rings, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Richard Pryor Live in Concert, Selena, Wall-E, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane, and others. The National Film Registry are 25 films selected each year to showcase the range and diversity of American film heritage to increase awareness for its preservation.

Five years after Felicity Jones played the heroic and doomed Jyn Erso in Rogue One, she sat down for an interview with StarWars dot com to reflect on it. She said told them quote “I couldn’t believe what an amazing part it was,”  “Most of the female roles in franchises at that time were supporting roles.” But Jyn Erso was different: scrappy, tough, resilient, and undoubtedly center stage as the leader of an impressive team of rogues and rebels. “I just felt instinctively that I understood Jyn and knew how I wanted to play her.” unquote She Also talked about how blown away she was by the production saying quote “The scale of [Rogue One] was incredible — the number of extras, the amount of crew, the size of the sets. I’d never experienced anything like it,” “It was like being on another planet.” And she also talked about how she approached playing Jyn quote “I approached Jyn very physically, I wanted it to feel that she’s been learning to fight her whole life and she navigates the universe in such a way that she’s ready and prepared to attack whenever she might need to,” In the weeks leading up to filming, Jones learned a form of martial arts called Wushu, and became an intensely dedicated practitioner. “It gave me the physical strength to annihilate stormtroopers, but also a sense of the mental strength that is so key to martial arts — that your body can be a lethal weapon and you have to use that strength wisely.” “I loved all those aspects of Jyn — her leadership qualities and her instinct for survival and also a sort of inner peace that made her feel ‘what happens, happens.’ Many of the attributes we’re needing now with the pandemic we’re going through.” Jones says. In fact, tackling the role of a rebel who was ready to take on the entire Empire herself gave Jones the strength and fortitude to stand up to real-life bullies. “I did feel invincible after playing Jyn,” she says. “I remember some young guy was harassing my elderly neighbor for money at her front door and I intervened to get him to leave her alone. I definitely was channeling a bit of Jyn’s strength in that moment!”

Star Wars Eclipse, the upcoming video game set in the High Republic might be pushed back so far they’ll have to pimp it again at the future game awards. According to reputable leaker and industry insider Tom Henderson, development studio Quantic Dream may only release the game in 2026-2027. This is due to a variety of reasons, most notably due to shifts in the project's development goals and the recent allegations coming out against the studio. Citing sources that have "information of Quantic Dream's current and past plans," Henderson notes that Eclipse reportedly started life off as an MMORPG that was pitched to Sony, who rejected the idea and instead pursued Detroit: Become Human. The assets from this project were then repurposed to pitch a game set in the Star Wars universe to Lucasfilm, who greenlit the game. Henderson also noted that while it’s been in development for eighteen months, there doesn’t seem to be a playable build.

Star Trek

So 2022 has a lot for Star Trek fans, Prodigy, Picard and Lower Decks are returning as well as the debut of Star Trek Strange New Worlds which will take us back to the traditional episodic format. There will be new games like Star Trek Resurgence, A 4K update of THe Motion Picture, we will see new Star Trek toys from Playmates Toys after a 22 year hiatus. Conventions, books, comic books and much more.  Speaking of comics, 


IDW announced a new four issue miniseries taking place in Discovery’s far flung future. Star Trek Discovery Adventures in the 32nd Century. The new series reunites co-writers Kirsten Beyer and Mike Johnson, whose previous collaboration on Star Trek: Discovery comics included The Light of Kahless, Succession, and Aftermath. The authors are joined by artist Angel Hernandez, celebrated by fans for his work on Star Trek / Green Lantern: The Spectrum War and, most recently, Star Trek: Manifest Destiny.Each issue of Adventures in the 32nd Century will spotlight a different cast member, and the first issue’s focus promises a unique perspective from the Star Trek franchise as it reveals the secret history of the queen herself: Grudge the Cat! A flashback tale of her first meeting with Cleveland “Book” Booker sets the stage for a trajectory establishing Grudge as the greatest feline spacefarer of all. Subsequent issues will focus on ensign Adira Tal, Lieutenant Keyla Detmer, and science officer Linus.Star Trek: Discovery – Adventures in the 32nd Century will be available with two cover variants for retailers and fans to enjoy, including Cover A by interior artist Angel Hernandez and a Retailer Incentive edition by Aaron Harvey. No release date was given.



Geek

A missing 1963 Asdton Martin DB5 used in the James Bond movie Goldfinger has reportedly been found. According to Motorious (via Yahoo!), the sportscar, Chassis NO. DP/216/1, had been missing since June 1997 when it was stolen from a secured hangar at the Boca Raton Airport where it had been stored. In the nearly 25 years since the theft, many have theorized about the car's location but now, investigators believe that they have located the Aston Martin in the Middle East. The exact location has not been released. According to a witness spotted the car in a "private setting", but Art Recovery International has only indicated that Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Bahrain are "particular areas of interest". The report notes that someone was able to verify the car's serial number and found it to be a match for the missing Aston Martin. The car is worth more than $25 million and investigators are hopeful it will be recovered soon.

"I'm hopeful that the possessor will come forward voluntarily before I have to make an announcement," chief executive of Art Recovery International said. "It's my policy to give the possessors of stolen and looted objects every opportunity to do the right thing. I don't believe the current possessor knew the car was stolen when he or she acquired it. Now they do know, I think they should make every effort to have a discreet confidential discussion about how we clear the title to this iconic vehicle."

The vehicle was driven by Sean Connery in the 1964 film Goldfinger. This specific vehicle is unique due to the number of gadgets that were installed in it for the purposes of making the movie, such as pop-out machine guns, water/oil sprayers, tire shredders, and more. At the time of the theft, the vehicle was owned by a businessman named Anthony Pugliese who had purchased the vehicle at a Sotheby's New York auction in 1986 for $275,000. Since the theft, there have been numerous theories about the vehicle, including that the vehicle was stolen by a real-life Bond villain, though the real story about the car's theft may have to wait until it's been safely recovered.

Winnie the Pooh will enter the public domain in 2022. However, before you start printing tee shirts with that yellow bear on it. There are some huge caveats you should know about.First of, it’s not the Disney versions that are going into public domain, but the original short story collection by A.A. Milne. The original book came out in October of 1926. So you can make a story based on the original book, but no tigger who wasn’t introduced until 1928, which means he is copyrighted till 2024. However Disney’s version of the characters are still trademarked. 

Disney’s versions came in 1961. So now Yellow Rabbit, no shirts on Roo and No Red shirts on your personal version of Pooh. However you can base your off of the original drawings in the book to your heart's content. Other things entering the public domain this year include. Earnest Heminway’s THe Sun Also Rises, Agatha Christie’s  The Murder of Roger Ackroyd,Felix Salten’s Bambi, A Lifew in the Woods (that was what the Disney movie was based off of. A Sound recordings pre 1923, several movies starring Harold Loyd, Buster Keaton, Greta Garbo and Rudolph Valentino and music works like George and Ira Gershwin’s SOmeone to Watch Over Me, Harry Woods When the Red Red FRobin COmes Bob, Bob, Bobbin’ Along and Irving Berlin's Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

2021 couldn’t end without taking a big penance. New Years Eve dawned with news that Actress Betty White passed away during the night.Betty White was born on January seventeenth, 1922 Oak Park Illinois. Betty got her start in radio when she was eight years ol as a guest caller in 1930 when World War two broke out she put her career on hold and volunteered for the American Women's Voluntary Services, transporting supplies through California. Several years later she would work as a radio personality in Los Angeles and soon got her own radio show called The Betty White Show,  After that she transitioned to television co-hosting a daily show called Hollywood on Television. 

five and a half hours of live ad lib television six days per week, over a continuous four-year span. In all of her various variety series over the years, White would sing at least a couple of songs during each broadcast. In 1951, she was nominated for her first Emmy Award as "Best Actress" on television, competing with such legendary stars as Judith Anderson, Helen Hayes, and Imogene Coca, but the award went to Gertrude Berg. This was the first award in the new Emmy category designated for women on television. White would soon get her own sitcom called Life with Elizabeth.  In the 1960’s White was a staple of game shows and panel talk shows like The Tonight Show and Password, She married Passwords host Allen Ludden in 1963. She also made appearances on What’s My Line, To Tell The Truth, I’ve Got a Secret, Match Game, and Pyramid over the decades. Betty made her feature film debut as Kansas Senator Elizabeth Ames Adams in the 1962 drama Advise And Consent. She was also offered the anchor job on the Today show, but turned it down, not wanting to move to New York. She did however start a nineteen-year run as host and commenter for NBC’s Annual Rose Parade coverage.

In the ’70s, Betty would make several appearances on the Mary Tyler Moore Show as Sue Ann Nivens. The role would win her two Emmy Awards and considered it the highlight of her career. After The Mary Tyler Moore Show ended, White was offered a fourth The Betty White Show, but it only lasted one season.

In the ’80s, White became the first woman to win a Daytime Emmy Award in the category of Outstanding Game Show Host, for the NBC entry Just Men![41] Due to the amount of work she has done on them, she has been deemed the "First Lady of Game Shows".  She also had a recurring character on the tv series Mama’s Family. IN 1985, she got the role that would keep her fresh to millions for decades to come as Rose Nylund in the NBC sitcom The Golden Girls. White won one Emmy Award, for Outstanding Actress in a Comedy Series, for the first season of The Golden Girls[3] and was nominated in that category every year of the show's run (the only cast member to receive that distinction – Getty was also nominated every year but in the supporting actress category).

The ’90s saw the end of The Golden Girls after Bea Arthur decided to leave the series. White, rue McClanahan and Estelle Getty reprised their roles for a spinoff called The Golden Palace, but it only lasted one series, she would go on to reprise the role on other shows like Empty Nest and Nurses. She spent the rest of the decade doing guest star roles, even winning an Emmy in 1996 for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series, appearing as herself on an episode of The John Larroquette Show.

In the 2000’s White was cast in a recurring role on The Bold and the Beautiful, making 22 appearances. She also had guest appearances on Boston Legal, The Practice, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and other shows. In 2009, White starred in the romantic comedy The Proposal alongside Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds. The film was a box-office and critically acclaimed success.[citation needed]

Also in 2009, the candy company Mars, Incorporated launched a global campaign for their Snickers bar; the campaign's slogan was: "You're not you when you're hungry". White appeared, alongside Abe Vigoda, in the company's advertisement for the candy during the 2010 Super Bowl XLIV. The advertisement became very popular and won the top spot on the Super Bowl Ad Meter. Following the Snickers ad, a grassroots campaign calling for Betty White to host Saturday Night Live started, and NBC responded making her the host on May 8th of 2010. The gig earned her a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series, her seventh Emmy win overall. After that, she landed the role of Elka on the TVland sitcom Hot in Cleveland, Hosted a senior citizen practical joke show called Betty White’s Off Their Rockers, got merchandised with a calendar and clothes. IN 2012 she won a Grammy for a spoken-word recording for her bestseller If You Ask Me. She also won the UCLA Jack Benny Award for Comedy, recognizing her significant contribution to comedy in television, and was roasted at the New York Friars Club and was honored with a special for her 90th Birthday party. IN 2019 she had two final movie roles in Toy Story 4 and Trouble.

Betty White died in her sleep in her home in the Brentwood Neighborhood of Los Angeles on the morning of December 31. Just seventeen days shy of her 100 birthday.

And that brings us to the end of this edition. *Show Ender*

Now be sure to check us out on social media, we’re at Twitter @multiverseTom also on Facebook and Instagram as well. 

*Ko-Fi button*

And If you’d like to contribute some money, check out the show notes, visit our Teepublic store, and much more over at the brand new MultiverseTonight dot com *Show Ender*

 

If you’re a subscriber, be sure to share with your friends and if you’re brand new to the show, please be sure to subscribe. And leave us some feedback and let us know how we’re doing.

Special thanks to Shane Ivers for our intro music and Lobo Loco for our outro music theme music.

Thanks for watching this edition of Multiverse Tonight. We will be back in two weeks with more sci-fi and comic book news. Now please exit the universe in an orderly fashion. Good Night!  

 

Multiverse Tonight is a production of Half-Baked Genre Productions. Copyright 2022. All Rights Reserved.