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A real promo for DC KO:

NYCC ’25: Sub-Zero from Mortal Kombat to appear in DC KO, along with other characters

Details on other Marvel shows: https://www.marvel.com/articles/tv-shows/marvel-television-animation-new-york-comic-con-2025-panel-recap

VisionQuest

Bettany treated fans to exclusive first footage from the show, revealing Henry Lewis as D.U.M.-E, Jonathan Sayer as U, James D’Arcy as J.A.R.V.I.S., Orla Brady as F.R.I.D.A.Y., Emily Hampshire as E.D.I.T.H., Ruaridh Mollica as Thomas Shepherd, and the return of James Spader as Ultron.

“What’s different about Vision right now is that Red Vision gave Vision all of his memories, including the memories from within the Hex. But White Vision is having real difficulty connecting to them,” explained Bettany. “White Vision’s journey during the show is about his attempt to connect to those memories and who he was… but with lasers!”

Interesting that they apparently couldn’t get Kerry Condon as live-action F.R.I.D.A.Y., so just cast a different Irish woman.

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Todd

Full trailer:

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Dan

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Todd

Amazon have removed all the guns from the preview thumbnails for the Bond movies: https://variety.com/2025/film/global/amazon-removed-guns-james-bond-art-backlash-1236540926/

They’ve since replaced the photoshops with gunless screenshots:

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lorcan_nagle, Todd

Martin Smith wrote:

Still, roll on s3 and more celebrity killers. And if they could work in a Good Wife cameo (Eli or Carey ideally, possibly Diane) that’d be nice.

Not Eli, but they just confirmed Marissa Gold will be showing up this season.

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Martin Smith

Sean Robinson wrote:

What collections are those?
No matter really, you said the issue numbers.

But I am so looking forward to the 6th omnibus (issues 150 – 188, plus annuals 6-9), although you’re making me a bit nervous.

Haven’t read in so long, and in batches, out of order, at a friends house long, long ago.
I may have built it up in my head a bit too much, Ill have to have a grip on reality.

Although, check out this line-up.

Written by Gerry Conway, Jim Shooter & David Michelinie With Steve Englehart, Stan Lee, Scott Edelman, Bill Mantlo, Jim Starlin, Roger Stern, Marv Wolfman, Roger Slifer, Steve Gerber, Tom Defalco, Mark Gruenwald, Steven Grant, Mark Evanier, Gil Kane, Roy Thomas & Don Glut
Penciled by George Pérez, Sal Buscem & John Byrne With Jack Kirby, John Buscema, Herb Trimpe, Jim Shooter, Don Heck, George Tuska, Jim Starlin, Dave Wenzel, Carmine Infantino, Jim Mooney, Don Newton, Michael Netzer, Gil Kane, Jim Craig & Alan Kupperberg

Now thats an all-star cast!

I’m reading along with the Marvel by the Month podcast, and they’re up around the start of that era now (Early 1977, #158, Shooter’s first issue).

It’s a mess, mostly due to Marvel’s editorial woes at the time. #150 is supposed to be the big anniversary issue reveal of the new lineup, but because the book is running late, 75% of the issue is a reprint, and they have to do the reveal in #151, along with an apology for the chaos and the multiple writers.

Still, it’s better than most of the books Marvel were putting out at the time, especially the issues with George Perez on art.

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Todd, Sean Robinson

garjones wrote:

I signed up months back and forgot about it until they sent an email so have the beta access. It needs work but looks promising.

I hadn’t signed up, but I just got an email telling me that because I had signed up for the DSTLRY digital store, I’m in the beta anyway.

Robert Redford, Screen Idol Turned Director and Activist, Dies at 89

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JRCarter, Todd, Al-x, Sean Robinson

Yeah, I saw the showrunner talk about how the writing on S3 was rushed because of the WGA strikes back in 2023.

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lorcan_nagle

garjones wrote:

 

This This is the beta of the new site from the ex Comixology people. Looks very similar but I notice they have a ‘resellable’ tag on the books so looks like you can trade after you’ve read.

https://neonichiban.com/ if anyone wants to keep up to date. No way to sign up yet.

Martin Smith wrote:

paul f wrote:

The show’s described as a “profoundly serious” crime thriller, which is the first clue that he’s up to something wickedly funny.

I’d have though the first clue was that it’s set in “Bleakford”, but maybe that went over Netflix’s heads.

I’d forgotten about A Touch Of Cloth. I don’t think I ever did see the second (third?) series of that (the one with Karen Gillan).

Yeah, that was the third. I remember very little about the show, other than quite liking it and that it had cameos from several The Bill cast members.

Charlie Brooker Announces New Crime Thriller Series

The untitled series is set between the fictional northern city of Bleakford and the streets of London, following a tormented detective on a relentless mission to catch a ritualistic serial killer before they run out of victims. The show’s described as a “profoundly serious” crime thriller, which is the first clue that he’s up to something wickedly funny.

Leading the series is a powerhouse trio of British actors: Paddy Considine (House of the Dragon, MobLand), Georgina Campbell (Barbarian, The Watchers), and Lena Headey (Game of Thrones, The Abandons).

Sounds like something in the A Touch of Cloth vein.

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Dave

Martin Smith wrote:

So weird that one of the PDD guys is now a featured player, given that’s kinda what they were as PDD anyway and they’ve already got films off the back of it.

John Higgins is leaving the show, so they won’t be doing any shorts anymore. There weren’t many of them last season, so not too surprising. Martin Herlihy is staying on as a writer.

I’m a big fan of Culhane’s comedy on podcasts and Dropout shows, I hope they don’t waste him.

My copy of the very-long-awaited Sandman Mystery Theatre Vol. 2 showed up!

One annoying thing is that this is the second item I’ve pre-ordered from the new Amazon.ie, and both times they haven’t applied the pre-order price guarantee. I had to get onto customer services to get refunded the difference, rather than being charged the lower price at dispatch.

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Martin Smith, Uncle Retrospective

JRCarter wrote:

More “actor wants work” news:

https://ew.com/rainn-wilson-wants-to-play-plastic-man-in-movie-james-gunn-11796321

Eh, it’s slightly different when the actor was previously the lead in a James Gunn movie, it’s not like Gunn doesn’t reuse actors all the time.

Martin Smith wrote:

Ben wrote:

Booksellers list it as 9 Sept, comic shops get it now.

Best price online so far is SpeedyHen at £18.08.

I didn’t even know they were making it, let alone when it was due out. Although I dimly recall something announcing this alongside the TV commission. is that still happening?

It was filmed in summer 2024, no updates on when it will be released.

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Ben

Dave wrote:

Man of Steel’s box office was also viewed as something of a disappointment at the time.

Yeah, Man of Steel was coming off the back of the Nolan Batman movies and really played up that connection (even though Nolan likely had no part in the movie), and it didn’t come close to those movies.

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Dave

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Todd

Ben wrote:

One oddity is the throwaway inclusion of Taskmaster, not sure what the idea there was.

The writer said that in the script Taskmaster is around for the entire movie.

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Todd, Ben

Bradley Cooper has a new movie coming out, in which Will Arnett plays… John Bishop??

https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2025/daily/bradley-coopers-is-this-thing-on-will-make-world-premiere-as-closing-night-of-the-63rd-new-york-film-festival/

Will Arnett and Laura Dern play Alex and Tess Novak, whose marriage has reached an impasse. With amicable sorrow, the couple—parents of two young boys—mutually agree to split up. Yet in director Bradley Cooper’s keenly observed comic drama, their separation leads to unpredictable midlife self-reckonings, most dramatically in Alex’s wild career pivot to become a confessional stand-up comedian in New York City’s West Village, where he finds new direction and camaraderie. This seemingly outlandish scenario—in a script by Cooper, Arnett, and Mark Chappell inspired by the true story of British comedian John Bishop—is never played for easy laughs

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njerry, Todd

Dave wrote:

paul f wrote:

I would have liked at least one action scene before the big finale.

Did you miss the part where they flew threw an asteroid storm as a planet was devoured, battled Galactus and the Silver Surfer in space, then had to outrun the Silver Surfer at lightspeed through a wormhole, before buzzing a black hole in their invisible rocket to trap her at the event horizon, all while Sue was going into labour?

If so, you picked a terrible moment to take an extended toilet break.

I consider that a chase scene, not an action scene. I meant a scene where they’re fighting people, like superheroes do.

I didn’t dislike it, but I found it fairly boring. Very little action, very slow (I never had any sense of how far away Galactus was; the first Surfer scene makes it sound like he’s around the corner, but then months pass), and the tone was surprisingly downbeat. I would have liked at least one action scene before the big finale.

I liked the main cast, but don’t feel that interested in seeing them interact with the MCU folk. The supporting cast were basically nonexistent; I laughed out loud seeing which people were considered important enough to get their own billing in the end credits. Julia Garner as Silver Surfer got almost nothing to do, but she was good in the one scene where she got to show emotion.

For the smartest man alive, all of Reed Richards’ plans sure did fail spectacularly. The teleportation one was especially stupid; you’ve barely teleported one egg, and think it’s a good idea to teleport the entire planet? You don’t want to try a dog or something first?

It’s very funny that Doom has had one second of screentime and has already taken his mask off. Are they merging his relationship with Valeria onto Franklin? I don’t remember comics Doom caring about Franklin much, but there’s a lot of F4 I haven’t read.

I guess this is the last MCU movie until late next year? Spider-Man is still scheduled for next July, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they push it back, considering they haven’t started filming yet.

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Todd

Dave wrote:

Christian wrote:

But, you know. Waititi is at the same time in pre-production for a Star Wars movie, the Incal movie, a revisionist Huck Finn movie, and a Kazuo Ishiguro robot movie adaptation. Plus, he’s producing like twenty TV shows.

So he’s not doing Akira any more? Thank fuck.

The Akira rights finally expired a few weeks ago, so nobody’s working on it now, until another studio pays up.

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Christian

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njerry

[Martin Smith]

Martin Smith wrote:

Sean Robinson wrote:

So I guess the Gerard Jones (scumbag!) issue #84 will never see the light of day.

I feel like its omission will lead more people to ask why and find out that a guy who wrote for Marvel turned out to be a paedophile than if they’d just left it in there and not mentioned it. The Streisand Effect, really.

And if it’s on a broad principle of not reprinting the git’s work, well, they included issues of his Wonder Man series in the Operation Galactic Storm epic collection that came out after he was arrested and that’s been reprinted since.

I suppose, as ever with collaborative work, there’s no good answer to this kind of situation.

• This reply was modified 2 months, 4 weeks ago by Martin Smith.

They cut his issues out of the recent Amalgam omnibus too; it was originally solicited with them in, and they quickly updated it to remove them: https://bleedingcool.com/comics/gerard-jones-amalgam-stories-removed-from-dc-marvel-crossover-omnibus/

I just read the Justice League International omnibuses last week, and didn’t realise Jones scripted half of Vol. 2 and a third of Vol. 3; he took over Justice League Europe after DeMatteis left 12 issues in.

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Martin Smith

Tobias Radesäter wrote:

When writing about the movie on a swedish board, it suddenly came to me that Superman does NOT change during as part of the story. This has been a pet peeve of mine for a long time. Every scriptwriter in Hollywood have read the same manual for how to write a good script, and part of that is that the hero has to change to overcome the obstacles. In the old days, this was not the case. James Bond never changed in any of the movied (before he was played by Daniel Craig), and of course, in the comic books, Superman is the same at the start and the end of each story.

This Superman did not change. That’s how an iconic hero should be handled. He overcomes the obstacles by being himself, not by changing!

I disagree, and I think the scene at the end with the parents video shows this.

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Uncle Retrospective, Martin Smith

Just watched it. Probably my favourite superhero movie in at least a decade.

I’m gonna have to see this one in cinemas again.

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francisg, Sean Robinson

ITV and Disney to share shows such as The Bear and Love Island in UK

ITV and Disney have struck a deal to show programmes such as The Bear and Love Island on each other’s video platforms, the first such deal in the UK and the latest sign of the changing content relationship developing between British broadcasters and US streamers.

Under the deal, ITV will begin showing the first seasons of some of Disney’s hit programmes – including the hit chef drama, the Star Wars spin-off Andor, Only Murders in the Building and reality shows such as The Kardashians – free of charge on its ITVX service from later this month.

In return, Disney will start offering ITV programming including all of Mr Bates vs The Post Office and the espionage thriller A Spy Among Friends at no extra cost to subscribers of Disney+. It will also offer Love Island: All Stars and a series each of Endeavour and Vera.

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Martin Smith

Martin Smith wrote:

Gosh, you got those quick! Mine haven’t been sent yet. I suppose it’s an EU thing?

Yeah, surprising efficiency. I ordered them Friday afternoon, and got a text message from An Post with the tracking details exactly four hours later.

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njerry, Ben, Martin Smith

Martin Smith wrote:

There are some ridiculously cheap deals for thick trades and Omnibuses on Amazon Germany at the moment. DC Finest Plastic Man for about €10, Daredevil: Out for €12, Iron Man: Age Of Innocence for €11, Amazing Spider-Man Omnibus v6 for €30, Rom Epic Collection v1 for €15 (a little galling that’s so cheap so quickly as I made a rare pre-order for that). Reasonable postage to the UK as well. Not sure if this is Prime Day related or just a random 70% off sale, but worth a look.

Thanks for this!

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Todd

Ben wrote:

Did you enjoy The Residence on Netflix?

You did?

Well, too bad, it’s been axed.

To be fair, The Residence was basically a self-contained miniseries. I never thought it would come back for a second season.

njerry wrote:

JRCarter wrote:

Next James Bond director announced as Oscar-nominated Denis Villeneuve

So who will be the next James Bond? Josh Brolin? Timothy Chalamet? Zendaya?

Aaron Pierre is apparently the new favourite. He’s amazing in Rebel Ridge.

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JRCarter

Anyone else watch Ironheart?

It’s not very good. If it came out back in 2023, when it was probably supposed to, it would probably have just been one of many MCU shows, and been middle of the pack, but it being so delayed makes it stand out.

They’re clearly setting the character up for a big future and further adventures that will never happen.

It’s nothing as bad as Secret Invasion, and it’s much less of a mess than Daredevil: Born Again, but it’ll probably go with Moon Knight and Echo as a show I’ll never think of again once I’m done watching.

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Todd

Martin Smith wrote:

Same with Miller’s Daredevil. Not entirely sure why. Also wouldn’t be as cheap to give to new readers as a smaller collection

Born Again was the first book released in Marvel’s attempt at replicating the DC Compact series:

Martin Smith wrote:

Oh, I think my big Summer Geoff Fest post triggered the spam filter.

Yeah, approved now.

[Ben]

Todd wrote:

lorcan_nagle wrote:

Ben wrote:

The hell? So MillarWorld books were only ever writer+ penciler? Nothing for letterers or colourists? That’s a crappy way to go on.

And yeah, he’s gone full pro-Comicsgate, probably announce a book with Van Scriver.

Murphy paid Hollingsworth for his work to make up for the lack of royalties.

• This reply was modified 4 months, 1 week ago by Ben.

The thing is, I can’t imagine there’s a huge amount of money left in ComicsGate given how many of their projects have been late, underdelivered, or just plain not delivered.  You’d think Millar still had the cachet that he didn’t need to slum it like this.

Mark’s star does not appear to be shining as bright as it once was. His work has always pushed the boundaries of good taste, and he often crossed that line. Maybe he’s finally giving in to his baser impulses and hanging out with the losers where he’s the big fish in the small pond.

Millar sold MW to Netflix in 2016 for around $31 million. I would assume he gets some form of continuing payment from them for new work. So, why do Kickstarter?

Anything he does through Netflix is owned by Netflix. Presumably he and JRJR own this new thing themselves, including the movie rights.

It’s also possible Netflix no longer sees the value in Mark developing ideas for them, given it’s been almost a decade and none of them have been successes.

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Christian, Martin Smith, Todd, lorcan_nagle

Ben wrote:

Exactly, they have deliberately killed off their other income streams in favour of streaming which cannot give them that much.

Paramount clearly understand this as they issue Trek in DVD, BR and UHD formats. They know people will likely sub for the releases then buy the discs later.

Not sure about in the US, but in the UK Disney+ and Paramount Plus have sold off second-run rights to a bunch of their shows to ITV.

Christian wrote:

It’s definitely a bit strange that Gatwa only did two seasons. I would say that I am glad because I didn’t really like an emotionally aware and happy-go-lucky Doctor – I rather prefer them when they’re sarcastic, emotionally unavailable and kinda mean-spirited – but I am not really enthused by that shot of Billie as Doctor, either.

It seems pretty clear Gatwa wanted to do a third series, but also wants to do other things, and wasn’t going to wait around for them to commission the next run, so asked for the reshoots so he could be written out.

Using Piper seems a pretty clear admission that they didn’t want to cast a new actor when they have no idea when they will get to film anything with them.

I doubt RTD will ever admit to any of this, at least not anytime soon; I still remember him claiming that Eccleston leaving after one series was always the plan, to introduce new viewers to the idea of Regeneration.

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lorcan_nagle

Sean Robinson wrote:

Just really want to throw on Homicide.
No, too much. Where to start?

With Homicide? Start at the start, and you can stop after Season 3 (which is actually only 1.5 seasons of episodes).

Homicide starts great, but gets progressively worse every season as they run out of material from David Simon’s book, and get rid of the original cast and replace them with younger more annoying people. Seasons 4-6 are still pretty good in parts, I gave up on the final season two episodes in.

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Martin Smith

Dan wrote:

He has said he is aiming at a younger audience, and its hitting its marks there.

A younger audience wouldn’t have been born when Billie Piper was on the show!

Of course, I wasn’t born when Mel was on the show, and her appearance did nothing for me.

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lorcan_nagle

Dave wrote:

paul f wrote:

They didn’t complete the contract, Disney originally agreed to fund 26 episodes;

I think that includes this upcoming spinoff though. Once that’s over it will add up to 26.

Three anniversary specials, two Christmas specials and sixteen regular episodes is already 21 episodes, and the spinoff miniseries is the other five.

Ah, I forgot the Tennant episodes would count.

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lorcan_nagle, Dave

Ian Smith wrote:

I just feel like they’ve completed their contract with Disney and instead of having a proper regeneration, we’re just getting another stunt casting.

They didn’t complete the contract, Disney originally agreed to fund 26 episodes; apparently the next season was all written, and they planned to film earlier this year, but it was never ordered into production.

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lorcan_nagle, Ian Smith

So, this is the first time in 20 years that we have no idea if or when the show will be back? They have nothing else filmed, so I guess we’ve no Christmas Special, and no series next year.

I hope The War Between the Land and the Sea is good? My hopes aren’t high.

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lorcan_nagle, Martin Smith

The Last of Us is another show, like House of the Dragon and The Rings of Power, where I enjoyed the first season, but felt no desire to keep watching when it back after the long break between seasons.

I’ve started watching Murderbot on Apple TV+. I was skeptical, as I enjoy the books a lot, but it’s been good so far. Alexander Skarsgard is a good lead, and I’m enjoying his dry delivery in the voiceover. Some of the subplots aren’t great so far, but it’s only ~22-25-minutes episodes, so it mostly breezes by.

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Uncle Retrospective, lorcan_nagle

Dave wrote:

DC v Marvel news:

https://www.cbr.com/batman-deadpool-marvel-dc-crossover/

Wells/Capullo and Morrison/Mora on a pair of Batman/Deadpool crossover books.

It could be worse, but it also could be better.

When are they finally just going to do Batman/Daredevil and get it over with?

I’m going to assume Marvel and DC released this right now just to mess with Millar, and good on them.

I have no idea what a Morrison-written Deadpool looks like.

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Martin Smith

Martin Smith wrote:

How much of that is actually going to happen, do we think? The announcements, I mean. Millar was forever teasing “big news” about such and such that would then never materialise.

Rich Johnston has already said Marvel and DC have nothing in the works with Millar: https://bleedingcool.com/comics/nope-its-not-mark-millar-on-dc-marvel-or-marvel-dc/

[paul f]

Christian wrote:

Well, he’s still writing stuff, but it doesn’t seem like a lot is happening with the books. And he doesn’t seem to be doing any of those crazy PR pushes anymore.

It’s funny you post this now, because he’s literally doing one right now (I still follow the MW Facebook page, and he just started posting to it for the first time in two years).

• This reply was modified 4 months, 2 weeks ago by paul f.
• This reply was modified 4 months, 2 weeks ago by paul f.

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Christian, Todd

I was a big fan of his novels too: The Knight Life and Sir Apropos of Nothing series were great, and I read and enjoyed his New Frontier novels before I’d actually seen any Star Trek.

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njerry, lorcan_nagle, Vikram

I was hoping this would mean we might get another movie between F4 and Doomsday, but they’ve changed all their placeholders from Untitled Marvel Movie to Untitled Disney Movie, so nope. Just the fourth Spider-Man, and that might get delayed too, and then nothing in the year between the two Avengers movies.

We might get the Vision Quest TV series around then, maybe?

Martin Smith wrote:

paul f wrote:

Martin Smith wrote:

I assumed he was still recovering from his accident.

He’s done two seasons of his Mayor of Kingstown show since.

I’m sure I’ve seen that name before but it means nothing to me. Was that not a Kate Winslet thing?

That’s Mare of Easttown (which was the main show the first episode of Agatha All Along was parodying). Mayor of Kingstown is a Taylor Sheridan thing, like Yellowstone.

Martin Smith wrote:

I assumed he was still recovering from his accident.

He’s done two seasons of his Mayor of Kingstown show since.

Watched Sinners, easily the best movie of the year so far. I’m glad Coogler is free from doing Marvel movies (loved Black Panther, Wakanda Forever was a chore). Lots of gore and action, along with a good story and great characters.

Not many laughs aside from Delroy Lindo, I did get a chuckle after hearing a not-very-mumbled “What the fuck?” from someone in my Irish crowd after the scene where the vampires all sing “The Rocky Road to Dublin.”

Stay for the mid-credits scene, most of my audience were on the way out and were left standing for the (quite long) epilogue scene.

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Uncle Retrospective, Todd, Martin Smith

Martin Smith wrote:

Given they’re increasingly not that young, they might end up being just the Avengers at the end of the next set of Avengers movies.

I did see a rumour that they would be The Champions, which I guess is the team name they have left.

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lorcan_nagle, Todd

Martin Smith wrote:

She’s presumably on a back burner until a Young Avengers project happens. Can’t be too long, they’ve got most of them set up now. I was a bit surprised Eli wasn’t in Brave New World at all, actually.

My assumption is that had been planned as a TV show, before they cut back on all of those, and now they have no idea what to do with these characters.

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lorcan_nagle

[Al-x]

Al-x wrote:

One of the incarcerated was Kate Bishop’s stepfather, the Swordsman. Will the next generation Hawkeye get involved? Or other NY heroes like Jessica, Cage, Fist, Echo, Spidey?

• This reply was modified 5 months, 4 weeks ago by Al-x.

I was hoping Kate would show up, but given they sent the whole season to critics and it didn’t leak, I knew she wouldn’t. I just want her to show up somewhere. I’m still hoping she’s in Thunderbolts*.

That finale was much too grimdark for my liking. I might have liked it more as the start of S2 setting up the new status quo than as the end of S1, which is just a bizarre season of TV when looked at as a whole.

I don’t care much for The Punisher, and never watched his Netflix show, so I hope giving over one of the S2 episodes to the Punisher special means he’s not in Daredevil: Born Again S2 much.

Martin Smith wrote:

. Their mass deal for HBO content with Sky Atlantic surely would have been enough to get it on.

I think the deal is still only for shows that air on proper HBO. So Sex Lives of College Girls went to ITV, Tokyo Vice and Our Flag Means Death went to BBC, Hacks went to Prime Video before Sky eventually bought it, etc.

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Martin Smith

Christian wrote:

Huh. Currently, no streaming service in Germany has The Pitt.

Man, this is getting really annoying.

Yeah, nowhere in the UK/Ireland yet. Sky had originally advertised that they were co-producing it and it was supposed to air back in January, but something happened and they pulled all the press releases, etc mentioning it.

People have assumed Max are saving it until they launch their own streaming service here, but that won’t happen until the show’s second season has finished.

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Martin Smith

Universal are building a theme park in Bedford, planned to open in 2031: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz95n2837vgo

That was definitely a lot better. I don’t care about Bullseye much, and the supporting cast is still paper thin, but it felt like a much more confident show.

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lorcan_nagle, njerry

Yeah, the second half of this trailer made me laugh out loud.

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Sean Robinson, Dave

Interesting breakdown of what is new and what is reshot/moved in the series: https://www.reddit.com/r/marvelstudios/comments/1jldtgk/not_sure_what_is_new_and_what_is_old_with/mk2x57g/

What people seem to not realize about Born Again is, the show was never originally bad. There was a problem of lacking context to feel like a sequel to the Netflix show, but it was never bad in concept to do something different. While the Netflix show went for a Brian Michael Bendis tone, Born Again wanted to go for something more along the lines of the Mark Waid comics. That means more jokes, but also using that to show Matt over-compensating for his depression. You talk about Episode 5 being too quippy, but that’s entirely in line with Mark Waid’s Matt.

The main problem was that, like most MCU productions, the scripts weren’t finished when it went into production, and they were trying to fix them up as they went along. Then the WGA Strike happened, and then they could only shoot stuff as written. Which caused Jon Bernthal, who signed onto the show, to walk off due to his issues with the un-shot Punisher arc scripts. That in turn caused production to halt, with them only having 6 episodes shot of the original 18 scripts. The White Tiger arc, the breather “day in the life of” episodes, and the Muse arc were shot, but nothing else.

By the time the strike ended, Marvel came to three conclusions. One, the scripts they hadn’t shot yet had spiraled too out of control and needed to be vastly redefined or scrapped. Two, they needed to make it feel more like a sequel to the Netflix show. And three, they needed the cast to be enthusiastically on board with the show, rather than only kinda on board and wanting changes. Notably, Jon Bernthal, hence why the new showrunner was hired from The Punisher show, rather than the first Daredevil show.

The changes were never really about “un-doing” anything. It was all about contextualizing the new direction better with the old one, and aligning the new one to eventually lead back into something more like the old one.

All that said, here’s everything that was changed during the overhaul, up to Episode 5 because I haven’t watched 6 yet:

Episode 1:

• The new pilot, entirely new and written by Dario Scardapane and directed by Benson and Moorhead
• Done to establish a connective tissue to the Netflix show and set up ways to eventually bring the show back in line with it later on as well.

Episode 2:

• The original pilot, written by Corman and Ord and directed by Michael Cuesta, White Tiger arc part 1.
• Cut the original proper introductions to Kirsten, Heather, and Cherry
• Re-shot the Vanessa scenes (She was originally re-cast, but Scardapane brought back Ayulet).
• All Vanessa scenes were shot by Jeffrey Nachmanoff.
• Any and all Muse scenes shot by David Boyd and moved up from later episodes

Episode 3:

• Original episode 2, written by Jill Blankenship and directed by Michael Cuesta, White Tiger arc part 2.
• Vanessa scenes re-shot by Jeff Nachmanoff
• White Tiger’s death re-shot by Benson and Moorhead (We have set photos confirming that)
• Any and all Muse scenes shot by David Boyd and moved up from later episodes

Episode 4:

Original episode 3, written by David Feige and directed by Jeffrey Nachmanoff, Breather arc part 1.

• Originally had a “day in the life” structure, with no time cuts happening.
• That structure was changed in the overhaul due to the logistics of the new Vanessa re-shoots (Nachmanoff) and the movement of scenes from later episodes.
• Muse scenes shot by David Boyd and moved up from later episodes
• Matt finding the bullet is new connective tissue added by Jeffrey Nachmanoff and new writer Jesse Wigutow during the overhaul
• Punisher scene originally shot by David Boyd for original episode 5 or 6 (Now 6 or 7) and moved up. Bernthal’s side remains unchanged.
• Charlie Cox’s side has some re-shoots and ADR by Nachmanoff and Wigutow to better connect to White Tiger’s death

Episode 5:

• Original episode 4, written by Grainne Godfrey and directed by Jeffrey Nachmanoff, Breather arc part 2.
• Unchanged entirely
• Always meant to be a “bottle episode”, a lower budget standalone episode of a show meant to focus on character in between plot stuff
• Meant to show Matt’s status quo breaking, as well as establish MCU connectivity with fun cameos
• Last of the breathers before “things get real”

It seems all the Muse stuff was originally contained to one or two episodes, and they moved a bunch of scenes to earlier in the season to build him up more. Which makes this episode feel like a real anti-climax.

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David Fincher To Direct Brad Pitt In ‘Once Upon A Time In Hollywood’ Sequel Written By Quentin Tarantino

Wild that they chose to announce this on April 1st.

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Todd

Christian wrote:

About fucking time. What took them so long, anyway?

For the live-action one? Mostly Holland. He spent ages working on The Crowded Room, an Apple TV+ show he wanted to be his big serious prestige project, and apparently it was a terrible experience. When it came out everyone hated it, and he took a year off acting: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/tom-holland-the-crowded-room-not-harmonious-animosity-1236097983/ https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2023-06-08/tom-holland-acting-break-crowded-room

He’s been busy this year with The Odyssey.

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Dave wrote:

Also apparently the third and final Miles Morales Spider-Verse movie now isn’t coming out until 2027.

I think part of that is just that they want it on a different financial year to the live-action movie.

Sandman Mystery Theatre Compendium Two – Aug. 26th

888 pgs.
Collects Sandman Mystery Theatre #37-70, and Vertigo: Winter’s Edge #1-2.

:O FINALLY! Thank you!

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Sean Robinson

I enjoyed the bank heist episode, but it felt completely out of place on this show.

Fun (to me) fact: The actor playing the main bank robber almost certainly went to the same primary school as me, two years under me.

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Going by this, new episodes will now go up at 8am UK time, rather than midnight: http://www.thefutoncritic.com/showatch/doctor-who/listings/

I’m watching The Sandbaggers, a British spy show from the late 70s. It’s very slow and mostly just scenes of middle-aged British men having conversations, but it’s very good.

One of its main legacies is probably that it’s very clearly the main inspiration for Greg Rucka’s Queen and Country, a series that’s now even older than The Sandbaggers was when Q&C started.

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Uncle Retrospective

Sean Robinson wrote:

My first thought was “didn’t Bendis just do this a couple of years ago?”
Seems like they just retconned Bendis away, which is okay.
Ooh, a new Legion of Super-heroes must be around the corner!

If Waid is the current DC architect, then this will stay valid for 5 years, until 2030 (hmmm, DC’s 95th year. Could they hold off until 2035?)

Waid did it a few years ago, at Marvel, with Javier Rodriguez:

Dave wrote:

I do find it frustrating that Disney decided to retain so much of that material anyway and front-load it into this series, seems like a very poor decision when it must have been obvious that things weren’t working.

They only started filming Season 2 in the last few weeks, so I don’t think they would have enough material if they cut out all of the old stuff. They would probably have had to push back to the end of this year or early 2026.

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I watched the first episode of the UK Last One Laughing on Prime Video. Never watched one of these before, but the UK one has a lot of people I like in the cast (Bob Mortimer, Daisy May Cooper, Joe Lycett, Judi Love, Rob Beckett, Sara Pascoe, Lou Sanders, Joe Wilkinson, Harriet Kemsley, and Richard Ayoade), so I gave it a try.

It’s fun so far, I’ll definitely watch more, and maybe try some of the international ones. I know they did an Irish one recently which I might check out.

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Martin Smith

From the stars of MIDSOMMAR, A DIFFERENT MAN, & YOU HURT MY FEELINGS
The writers & director of BEEF
The cinematographer of THE GREEN KNIGHT
The production designer of HEREDITARY
The editor of MINARI
The composers of EEAAO
comes Marvel Studios’ THUNDERBOLTS*
in cinemas May 2

I’m not quite sure what they’re aiming for with this marketing angle.

Dave wrote:

I watched episode two. It’s still pretty flat although there are some better Fisk moments. But it feels like the kind of show that’s embarrassed to be about superheroes and so is almost all legal drama instead. And it’s kind of boring.

That’s why they completely changed showrunners and scrapped all their plans after the strike. Episode 1 and the last two were created by the new creative team, but Eps 2-7 are from the old team when it was mostly just going to be a legal drama in the superhero world. I’m sure the new team reshot some stuff, added some scenes, etc, but it’s still mostly the original showrunners’ show.

We probably won’t see fully what the new team want to do with Daredevil until Season 2.

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Todd

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Andor will release three episodes a week for four weeks: http://www.thefutoncritic.com/showatch/andor/listings/

Each block of episodes has a different writer, and they’ve said there’s a one-year time-jump after each block.

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Arjan Dirkse wrote:

95 is a good age to go, but his wife is much younger. Also the dog was found dead.

Yes, people are saying it sounds like carbon monoxide poisoning.

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Todd wrote:

Don’t forget the recently announced Punisher special, Season 2 of Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, Season 2 of X-Men ’97, and Marvel Zombies.

Yeah, I don’t count the animated shows. I’ve only seen X-Men ’97, and don’t feel like I’ve missed anything.

The Wakanda/Dora Milaje spin-off series isn’t happening: https://tvline.com/news/black-panther-okoye-cancelled-spinoff-series-disney-plus-1235413579/

That means they’ve shut down every announced TV series that hadn’t already started production. There’s still Ironheart, Wonder Man and Vision Quest to come, and S2 of Daredevil, but they’ve nothing else in the pipeline, at least publicly.

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Todd

Roberto Orci Dies: ‘Star Trek’, ‘Transformers’ & ‘Hawaii Five-0’ Writer-Producer Was 51

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Todd

Christian wrote:

Feels like a bit of a waste if they don’t have at least one movie a year coming out.

Clayface only announced a director this week, but it and Supergirl are both due out next year. I assume they’ll make progress on something else in time for a few 2027 movies.

New DC creative teams: https://www.polygon.com/dc/526838/dc-batman-matt-fraction

• Fraction/Jorge Jimenez on Batman
• Sophie Campbell on Supergirl
• North/Norton on Krypto
• Waid/Skylar Patridge on Action Comics

Honestly, maybe my least favourite MCU movie. Previously that was Incredible Hulk, but this is just a worse sequel to Incredible Hulk, in which they don’t even have the Hulk.

All the political conspiracy stuff raises comparisons to Winter Soldier, and none of those comparisons do the movie any favours. It’s a very stupid movie that has clearly had all the edges sanded off in reshoots and editing.

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Todd

Reviews out at 5PM GMT, but early reactions to Brave New World are mostly quite bad. Not unexpected (Falcon and Winter Soldier was a mess, and this seems to be a continuation of that), but disappointing.

Todd wrote:

The important thing to remember about the Slinger characters is they originally started out as different superhero identities for Peter Parker when Spider-Man was falsely accused of a crime, and he couldn’t be Spidey.

Having Peter wear the different suits is an actual homage to the comics.

Yeah, I’m pretty sure it was around the point I started reading Spider-Man in the UK reprints, when I was 13 or 14.

Martin Smith wrote:

If it gets us a Slingers complete collection, I’m all for it though.

I’d be happy with them just adding it to Marvel Unlimited.

I’ve skipped all of the recent Marvel animated shows except X-Men ’97, and had little interest in the Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man show, but I am intrigued by the promo image from the Disney+ carosel that shows that the Slingers are in it:

I have a soft spot for that era of Spidey comics (though I’ve never actually read the Slingers series).

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Todd

JRCarter wrote:

paul f wrote:

I guess Malkovich is probably playing Nathaniel Richards, but he does look really like da Vinci from Hickman’s SHIELD.

I thought the consensus was that Malkovich is playing the Red Ghost.

I’ll be honest: I have absolutely no idea who that is.

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JRCarter

I really like the trailer. I honestly wish they would keep the F4 and the X-Men in their own universes and not merge with the MCU. The MCU is boring, this place looks fun.

I guess Malkovich is probably playing Nathaniel Richards, but he does look really like da Vinci from Hickman’s SHIELD.

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Christian wrote:

Sean Robinson wrote:

Or have I missed a few?
This seems more recent more recent (from November).

Heh. It’s telling how there’s already two trailers for this and nerds like us hadn’t even noticed.

The trailers doesn’t look great either. And I don’t think anyone who didn’t watch the show can make heads or tails out of it. And given that quite a lot of people who liked the show in the beginning kinda gave up on it, this may be the first proper Star Wars movie dud. Apparently the budget is extremely low for this kind of movie (120 million), so it’ll still turn a profit, but it’ll still hurt the franchise if it’s a dud.

Those trailers aren’t real, they’re fan-made things.

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I haven’t seen I’m Still Here yet, but most of the BP nominees are pretty good.

My ranking:

1. Nickel Boys
2. Dune: Part Two
3. Anora
4. The Brutalist
5. Conclave
6. The Substance
7. Wicked
8. A Complete Unknown
9. Emilia Pérez

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lorcan_nagle

Yeah, it’s a lot of fun. I saw it in the cinema, but I don’t think many did.

I watched the new Wolf Man, which I found very disappointing.

There are a few cool visual moments and some nice pieces of sound design during the transformation, but the script is awful. In his first scene, Christopher Abbott literally tells his daughter he doesn’t want to be the type of father that his dad was, in case we didn’t get the theme of the movie.

Julia Garner is seriously wasted. The advertising sells the movie as a mother/daughter story, which it isn’t at all. The only interactions they have are talking about what’s happening to Christopher Abbott.

The wolf transformation is fairly weak: from a distance it looks silly, close-up it looks gross, never scary. There’s not much tension; it tries to play off an incredibly obvious plot development as if it were a twist, and once the movie hits the midpoint everything plays out almost exactly as I expected, there were basically no surprises.

The mythology of the movie, what little of it is explored, doesn’t make much sense either. Is there just the one wolf creature? How did nobody kill him in the ten years or so since he was transformed? It doesn’t seem hard. If there are more, are the surviving characters just going to get brutally killed five minutes after the movie ends?

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Uncle Retrospective

H2SH is a very funny title.

Hush was the first Batman comic I ever read, and I enjoyed it at the time, but I re-read it recently when they put out the Compact TPB, and it’s a very weak story.

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Todd

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It’s been almost three years, so I rewatched all of Severance ahead of the second season finally starting.

It’s a great show, but I’m less than confident in their ability to pay everything off properly, especially they’ve been fairly public that a big reason for the delay is that they couldn’t decide on what should happen in the second season.

Indie filmmaker Jeff Baena, husband of Aubrey Plaza, dead at 47: https://deadline.com/2025/01/jeff-baena-dead-47-independent-filmmaker-1236246487/

Tragic. I enjoyed the films he did with Plaza and Alison Brie.

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