4

Dark Phoenix Is Apparently Hilariously Bad

With Disney set to acquire 20th Century Fox, the future of the X-Men franchise has been thrown into limbo. The CEO of Disney has said that they'll continue making films like Deadpool, but he talks about it like he's trying not to dry heave at the idea of nasty ol' Ryan Reynolds being invited to his big Marvel party. They've also now got the long-suffering New Mutants film which is rumored to be heading to Hulu instead of getting a theatrical release. And then you have Dark Phoenix, which has been called an "embarrassment to all involved" by some who've seen a cut.

Oh. That's not great.

The X-Men films haven't exactly had a history of sustained quality. They've lacked a strong sense of creative leadership, and that's what's probably led to the series being softly rebooted roughly four times over the course of ten movies. However, you usually have to wait for them to come out before you can shit all over them. But in Dark Phoenix's case, we're getting a head start.

3

The Kingsman Franchise Is Continuing ... Without Its Star

The first Kingsman movie was kind of a delightful surprise. And it didn't hurt that they set an extended graphic fight scene to "Free Bird," which is like a cheat code to immediately get me on your side.

2

The World War Z Sequel May Never Get Made

Remember World War Z? For the most part, it failed to live up to its acclaimed source material, but it got decent reviews. Also, it's the highest-grossing zombie film of all time, and if you ranked it beside other horror movies, it would be the third-highest worldwide, and the fifth-highest domestically. It was also the biggest hit of Brad Pitt's career by far, so it was bound to get a sequel.

And that sequel was gonna be RAD. Originally it was supposed to be directed by JA Bayona, who made the awesome The Orphanage and the significantly less-than-awesome Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. But after he dropped out, it became attached to David fucking Fincher. Getting him to direct your zombie sequel is like getting Mozart to drop a single that features Pitbull. It's supernatural good luck, and it doesn't even matter now if the sequel is more like the original book.

But then filming was put off for a while, and then it got put off again. And then in February, it got canceled altogether, despite the fact that Fincher and co. planned to make it for less money than it cost Paramount to make the original. Paramount simply couldn't decide if they wanted it, and suddenly it's been six years since the original and everyone is still dicking around. Even if the project gets resurrected, will Fincher still be attached? Or Pitt? How about everybody just redirect their efforts toward making, say, a Netflix miniseries that follows the novel?

1

The Joaquin Phoenix Joker Movie Is Being Rewritten On The Fly

For years, I'd heard rumors about a solo Joker movie being made, after The Dark Knight solidified the character as a Serious Actor Role. But I never thought that Hollywood would actually go through with it. Didn't everyone praise the fact that Dark Knight's Joker didn't have an established origin? Isn't that the main thing we liked?

Now we've somehow wound up with two Joker movies. There's one based around Jared Leto's portrayal -- nobody is sure what's going on with that at the moment -- and the other starring Joaquin Phoenix. And get this: That one is being produced by Martin Scorsese! Well, it was, until Scorsese quietly dropped out, which was announced on the day the movie was greenlit. Regardless of what his actual contributions would've been, "We lost Martin Scorsese. Yes, THAT Martin Scorsese" is never good news.

But much more alarming is that the script was apparently entirely rewritten during shooting. Rewriting a script on-set isn't new in Hollywood, and even classics like Jaws went through copious rewrites during production. It's the kind of thing you can pull off when, say, your director is Steven Spielberg. This Joker movie is being directed by Todd Phillips, of The Hangover fame. Can he pull it off? It's possible!

Another complicating factor: They couldn't do any reshoots because Joaquin Phoenix lost so much weight. This wouldn't be so huge if the modern blockbuster industry didn't live and die based on the quality of its reshoots, but again, maybe everything will be fine? Better hope test audiences love it!