movies

Universal Pictures and Christopher Nolan to Adapt The Odyssey

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It’s been ten years since a Lionsgate screen adaptation of The Odyssey by Homer was announced. Sadly, that project didn’t get off the ground.

Now there are news of a Christopher Nolan adaptation. Nolan is to write, produce, and direct a “mythic action epic”, with backing from Universal Pictures.

Unlike the ill-fated Lionsgate project, this time more than one actor were reportedly already attached by the time the adaptation was announced. (At this writing: Zendaya, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Matt Damon, Charlize Theron, and Lupita N’yongo—gosh!) On the basis of the big-name initial cast, it sounds likely that this time there will actually be a movie.

Flickr Gary Todd Hellenic War Museum Penteconter Sm

Also, judging by the current publicity poster, there will be some ship action (maybe even ship-vs-monster action!) and in IMAX, no less. Writing in Nolan’s movies is either a hit or miss for me, but at least there’s usually been something interesting to see, so the sailing scenes might look truly magnificent. On the other hand, action sequence special effects in recent block busters have sometimes been—shall we kindly say—too implausible (and sometimes just badly made) for my enjoyment. I’m hoping that the effects teams, Nolan, other producers, and the studio can strike a sensible balance.

At this writing, the release day is set to July 17, 2026.

Image: a Greek penteconter ship by Gary Todd via Flickr (CC0 1.0 Universal), edited by Eppu Jensen

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Official Trailer Offers More on Captain America: Brave New World

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Besides the teaser trailer, there’s now a new, official Captain America: Brave New World trailer:

Captain America: Brave New World | Official Trailer by Marvel Entertainment on YouTube

Sounds like the plot will be grimmer than the teaser intimated. There are a few funny moments, too, like the Marvel Cinematic Universe prefers, for instance when Sam lands with a *whump* in the middle of a handful of soldiers guarding a mansion, quips “Wait for it”, and just pauses while the concussive blast from his landing knocks the soldiers back.

Liv Tyler makes a comeback as Betty Ross according to IMBD, even if we haven’t seen her yet—yay! In the cast listing there is also a whole bunch of new-to-me characters with superhero names, like Sidewinder (played by Giancarlo Esposito), Rachel Leighton / Diamondback (Rosa Salazar), Samuel Sterns / The Leader (Tim Blake Nelson), and Ruth Bat-Seraph / Sabra (Shira Haas). Looking forward to finding out more about them.

On one hand, topic-wise this would not be my nr. 1 pick for entertainment while two wars are being fought in Europe: the teaser mentioned shifting global power, and now this official trailer straight-up talks about coordinated terrorist attacks and President Ross being a wartime president. Brr.

They are also clearly trying to imply something by the repetitive division of the screen into two halves during the trailer. It could be just a way to stuff more material in, of course, but I suspect something more nefarious is intended, especially with the line about the President’s inner circle being compromised, the scratching “Reset Ross Reset America” on the wall, hints of brainwashing or other kinds of manipulation, etc.

On the other hand, the MCU movies really aren’t that deep or complex even when they pretend to be. I’m sure they’ll serve a nicely enough wrapped-up solution, if not in this movie, then in a future installment. A simple, black-and-white action romp may be just the thing to while away a couple of hours.

Just one little snarky hint to President Ross, though: if you don’t want a variable out there that you can’t control, do not be a president. A soldier should know that.

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Some Thoughts on The Hunt for Gollum Adaptation

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The news has been out for a good long while now: a new live-action Middle-Earth movie is in the works, set to be released in 2026 and produced by Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, and Philippa Boyens. It’s provisionally called The Lord of the Rings: Hunt for Gollum, and Andy Serkis will both direct and play Gollum. Apparently it’ll be the first of multiple films by Warner Bros. based on Tolkien’s books, and told from Gollum’s perspective.

Since this fall has been surprisingly full of Tolkien for us (we both re-read LotR in addition to our two trips to Tampere, first to see the John Howe exhibit and then the theatrical adaptation), we ended up talking about the upcoming Gollum movie and our misgivings with it. Below are some of those thoughts.

Erik

I’m not excited for The Hunt for Gollum. Nothing about the character of Gollum or the long and mostly fruitless search for him, as described in the book, sounds like promising material for further on-screen exploration. I fear that this film will turn into more overstuffed action/fantasy/comedy like the Hobbit trilogy. At best I hope to enjoy the settings, costumes, props, and other details that were made with such love and dedication by the production team on the earlier Middle-Earth films. Still, I’m always ready to be pleasantly surprised.

For films that fill in more of the story we haven’t yet seen on screen, I’d be more excited about an exploration of Sauron’s attacks to the north. The appendices to The Lord of the Rings mention that Sauron’s forces at Dol Guldur assaulted Lothlorien and ravaged the lands of the Mirkwood Elves while an army of his allies from the east came against the Men of Dale and the Dwarves of Erebor. In the end, Sauron’s forces were defeated. Galadriel, Celeborn, and Thranduil cleansed Mirkwood and overthrew Dol Guldur while Bard II of Dale and Thorin III of Erebor pushed Sauron’s allies back to the east. There is plenty of scope here for big action set pieces, drama between the folk of Middle-Earth, and the return of some favorite characters. At the same time, there is enough blank canvas that for new characters to join the cast without feeling like they were squeezing out Tolkien’s story. It would be nice to see what was happening to places and people we know from The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings while Sauron’s main offensive against Gondor was going on.

I could also enjoy a movie set in the Shire in the years after The Hobbit. A light-hearted comedy of Hobbit manners about the Sackville-Bagginses and their designs on Bag End could intertwine with the growing up of Frodo, Merry, Pippin, and Sam and the forging of the friendships that would be tested in the crucible of war far from home. A movie like this could give appropriate scope to Jackson’s taste for slapstick comedy while also allowing hints of the slowly creeping darkness of the ring and its effects on Bilbo to show through.

Eppu

My very first thought was: why would we want to see this particular story? Andy Serkis’s performance as Gollum will always be stellar, and I’m always up for seeing more of Weta’s work, but otherwise I’m quite unsure why this story was picked and why it should excite us.

Firstly, there isn’t that much to go on in LotR. According to Appendix B, Aragorn and Gandalf searched for Gollum together a few separate times, and the whole process takes them some 16 years.* In the second chapter of book two, The Council of Elrond, we get the most detail. There’s first a reference to a long and hopeless search. (Gandalf says that they went to the Mountains of Shadow and “the fences of Mordor”, where they guessed that “he dwelt there long in the dark hills; but we never found him, and at last I despaired”.)

Aragorn is the one to actually catch him: apparently he by chance found Gollum’s footprints leading away from Mordor and caught him somewhere in the Dead Marshes. Then followed an unpleasant walk to Mirkwood, and, finally, Gandalf questioning Gollum there.

What I see so far is a long, tedious, and possibly uneventful beginning followed by sleeplessness, stink, and cruelty (Aragorn himself says that Gollum “bit me, and I was not gentle […] making him walk before me with a halter on his neck, gagged, until he was tamed by lack of drink and food”).

A very skilled writing team is required to make something exciting out of that.

You know what I would rather see? For instance:

  • anything do do with the Hobbits arriving into Eriador (1050, c. 1150 of Third Age) and settling first Bree-land (c. 1300) and then the Shire; also the Stoors leaving the Angle and some returning to Wilderland (1356)
  • the heyday of Osgiliath (before the city was burned and its palantir lost in 1437)
  • Gondor and Arnor renew communcations and form an alliance (1940)
  • the fall of Arnor and the northern kingdom; how the heirlooms of Arnor are given to Elrond’s safekeeping (1976)
  • Dwarves live and mine in Moria and eventually are driven out
  • Thorin I leaves Erebor and goes north to the Grey Mountains (2210)
  • excavations of Great Smials (begun 2683), Bandobras Took defeats Orcs in the Northfarthing (2747), Gandalf comes to aid Hobbits (2758)
  • life in Dale, the coming of Smaug (2770)
  • Thráin II and Thorin wander westwards (from Moria?) and settle in southern Ered Luin beyond the Shire (2799-2802)
  • how and where Aragorn’s mother Gilraen (born 2907) lived in the north, her wedding to Arathorn, son of Arador (2929); death of Arador (2930) and birth of Aragorn (2931), Gilraen’s travels to Imladris with Aragorn after the death of her husband (2933)
  • The Fell Winter when many northern rivers are frozen, incl. the Baranduin (Brandywine) (2911)
  • Gandalf and Balin visit Bilbo in the Shire (2949)
  • Aragorn meets Gandalf and their friendship begins (2956), Aragorn’s journeys in the Wild begin in earnest, including time in Rohan and in Gondor in disguise (2957-2980)
  • Balin leaves Erebor and enters Moria (2989), the end of Balin and the Moria Dwarf colony (2994)
  • The Scouring of the Shire and the Battle of Bywater after the destruction of the Ring
  • King Elessar rides north, lives by Lake Evendim for a while, including meeting his Hobbit friends on the Brandywine Bridge, Elanor, daughter of Samwise, becomes a maid of honor to Queen Arwen (1436 Shire Reckoning)
  • Samwise, Rose, and Elanor ride to Gondor, stay there a year (1442 S.R.); Elanor marries Fastred of Greenholm (1451 S.R.), they have a child, Elfstan Fairbairn (1454 S.R.), and later move to Undertowers on the Tower Hills (1455 S.R.); Rose dies and Sam rides to Tower Hills and gives the Red Book to the Fairbairn’s keeping before leaving for the Grey Havens (1482 S.R.)

(All pulled from Appendix B of The Lord of the Rings.)

So much could be told about the the Shire’s early history. The tidbits on fighting with Orcs, a company of Hobbit archers sent to assist the King in the north, and the Fell Winter are tantalizing. Or the later history, too, especially focusing on Sam, Merri, and Pippin and their families.

There also has got to be a lot of unmentioned history behind details like “Gondor and Arnor renew communcations and form an alliance”, but I can see the (probably economic or marketing) reasons for focusing on characters we’ve already seen on the screen.

So, you could go with “Thráin II and his son Thorin wander westwards. They settle in the South of Ered Luin beyond the Shire”, or “Gandalf and Balin visit Bilbo in the Shire”, and keep a reasonable connection to events in the movie adaptations. The latter took place some eight years after the events of The Hobbit and 40 years before Balin sets out for Moria—surely a lot of leeway for embellishment there.

I also would really love to see the scouring of the Shire. Understandably the sequence would take a lot of reworking, since Jackson et al. chose to kill off Saruman and Wormtongue already at Isengard, but that kind of major revamping is hardly new to the team.

In any case, we’ll reserve final judgment until we know more. Here’s hoping it’ll be good.

*) Appendix B lists three years to do with the hunt for Gollum. First, in the year 3001, “Gandalf seeks for news of Gollum and calls on the help of Aragorn.” Second, in 3009, “Gandalf and Aragorn renew their hunt for Gollum at intervals during the next eight years, searching in the vales of Anduin, Mirkwood, and Rhovanion to the confines of Morder. At some time during these years Gollum himself ventured into Mordor, and was captured by Sauron.” Third, in 3017, “Gollum is released from Mordor. He is taken by Aragorn in the Dead Marshes, and brought to Thranduil in Mirkwood.”

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R.I.P. Dame Maggie Smith

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Actor Dame Maggie Smith has passed at the age of 89.

I’m most fond of her role as Dowager Countess Violet Crawley in Downton Abbey. It is one of the best in that franchise—most of the characters are interesting and all of the acting is fantastic, but hers topped it by far. Already two years ago, you could tell from the footage of the second movie, Downton Abbey: A New Era, that she was getting very old and fragile. I remember thinking at the time that I wouldn’t be surprised if that was to be her last performance. (It wasn’t, but almost.)

I also love her snarky Professor Minerva McGonagall from the Harry Potter movies. In addition, in the non-SFFnal work of hers I’ve seen she’s always been consummate, even if the roles themselves might sometimes be lukewarm.

Rest in peace, Dame Maggie. You will be missed.

Image: giffed screenshot from Downton Wars: Episode 2 – The Evil Butler Strikes Back, found via Primogif

Trailer for Megalopolis, with Thoughts

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The first trailer for Megalopolis by director Francis Ford Coppola is out:

Megalopolis (2024) Official Trailer – Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmanuel by Lionsgate Movies on YouTube

Strictly speaking, this is, in fact, the second iteration for a trailer. There was a bit of a kerfuffle, for the first version of the trailer was taken down because it included fake quotes from critics, which reportedly may have been algorithmically generated.

I have to say that I’m not wowed. It’s very pretty to look at, beautifully cinematic, even breathtaking at times. However, it really doesn’t seem to be a movie for me.

We’re not in the 80s or 90s anymore, when just about any SFFnal movie was sure to get my eyeballs simply by existing. Then, for a while during and after the aughts, handsome effects and CGI often got me to see a movie I wouldn’t necessarily have seen at the theater otherwise. Now we have reached a saturation point. For a good long while I have just not been able to be bothered about seeing a new release at the theater unless there’s something special about it, or a movie hits a very particular interest of mine.

(I will certainly not take the trouble, if trailers merely make a movie look like a whole bunch of men doing man-things and relegates women to the sidelines. It’s one thing to place your story in a society where minorities aren’t formally given recognition by the society, but there’s a huge difference between writing or filming those minorities in a dismissive way and a respectful way. I found Oppenheimer, for example, a wonderful example of the latter.)

Even reading that Megalopolis is loosely based on Roman history (the Catilinarian Conspiracy in 63 BCE involving an aristocrat attempting to overthrow the Republic) didn’t make it more interesting to me. Granted, the time stop gimmick is slightly interesting, but I confess that it, too, lost its appeal by the end of the trailer.

It is a shame I won’t see more of Nathalie Emmanuel, whose work in the Fast & Furious franchise and in Game of Thrones I’ve liked. Perhaps I’ll find Megalopolis in the library, if it’s ever imported to Finland. At this writing it doesn’t look like it, but we’ll see.

Megalopolis opens on September 27, 2024.

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Captain America: Brave New World Teaser Trailer

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To drum up interest for Captain America: Brave New World, Marvel came out with a short teaser trailer:

Captain America: Brave New World Official Teaser by Marvel Entertainment on YouTube

Sam’s comment to President Ross (“I have to admit, I’m still getting used to the new look.”) reads to me as a suitably lighthearted way to acknowledge the change in actors from William Hurt to Harrison Ford. RIP, Mr. Hurt.

Obviously the story somehow weaves in shifts in global power—there are a lot of Asian faces, but not many specifics at this stage—and the Red Hulk. The latter is completely unfamiliar to me, so it should be interesting to see how Marvel is able to introduce us non-comic readers to the character. (As far as I can tell, their track record so far is hit or miss.)

I am looking forward to learning what (beside wings!) Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson brings to Captain America the character and the franchise. It’s been quite a while since we properly saw him in action. Looks very cool so far!

At this writing, BNW is expected to release on February 14, 2025.

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Quotes: If Wolverine Can Weep at a Movie

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In honor of the movie Deadpool & Wolverine coming out next week, here’s a lovely tidbit concerning an earlier Wolverine movie. Sir Patrick Stewart apparently had the following to say on seeing Logan for the first time with an audience at the Berlin Film Festival in 2017:

“It was Hugh [Jackman] and [director] James Mangold and myself, and when it got to the last 10 minutes of the movie, it was emotional and intense, and I could feel myself getting choked up. Then I looked over at Hugh and he was wiping his eyes, and I thought if Wolverine can weep at a movie, Charles Xavier can do the same thing. Then Hugh reached over and grabbed my hand and we held hands for the rest of the movie.”

-Sir Patrick Stewart

HUGE props for Hugh Jackman and Sir Patrick—it’s not always easy being a man and showing emotion in the Anglo-American world, never mind when you’re supposedly this tragic tougher-than-nails superhero. (Sorry, sorry, bad pun very much intended!)

IMDB Logan Stewart and Jackman

(I do appreciate Sir Patrick so much—he’s such a humane and decent man, not to mention a superb actor!)

Lang, Brent. “Patrick Stewart on ‘Logan,’ Harvey Weinstein and Returning to ‘Star Trek’.” Variety, December 05, 2017.

Image via IMDB

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Deadpool & Wolverine Official Teaser Trailer

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Deadpool isn’t one of my favorite superheroes; the stories tend to be too explicitly violent, and the humor is about half and half hit or miss for me. I’m therefore not really following any DP news, so the fact that the third DP movie is called Deadpool & Wolverine was, well, news to me. It also made me perk up my ears, so to speak—Hugh Jackman’s performance as the mutant superhero that goes snikt was fabulous and got me to care about the character more than I otherwise would have.

The first trailer for DP&W was released last month:

Deadpool & Wolverine | Official Teaser | In Theaters July 26 by Marvel Entertainment on YouTube

Looks like the violence isn’t going to be any less gory this time either (even if the trailer itself was relatively clean as DP movies go). The bratty humor is also still there, as you’d expect—gotta keep the fans happy and the character consistent, right? But what I can’t yet figure out is how they’ll interweave the X-Men and DP.

It’s always a joy to see Morena Baccarin and Hugh Jackman. According to IMDB, however, Patrick Stewart will make an appearance, presumably as Professor Xavier, as will Jennifer Garner as Elektra. Whoa. I’ve mixed feeling about Matthew Macfadyen on the basis of past productions of his, so we’ll see what he makes of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

It should also be interesting to see how, exactly, is Marvel going to untangle (if at all?) their multiverse mess, which certainly hasn’t gotten easier with Jonathan Majors being dropped from the role of Kang. DP&W might actually hold my interest longer than the previous DPs. Here’s hoping!

At this writing, the movie is set to release on July 26, 2024.

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Three Trailers for Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two

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At some point in 2023 when I wasn’t looking, three trailers for Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two were published.

Part Two, trailer one:

Dune: Part Two | Official Trailer by Warner Bros. Pictures on YouTube

Here’s trailer two:

Dune: Part Two | Official Trailer 2 by Warner Bros. Pictures on YouTube

And trailer three reasonably recently (from mid-December):

Dune: Part Two | Official Trailer 3 by Warner Bros. Pictures on YouTube

Wow, trailer three’s music deviates quite strongly from the other two. (Too much ululation in the others?) Other than that, it’s clear we have a war coming—as those who’ve read the books know—and the Bene Gesserit looks to have a larger role. The emperor (Christopher Walken) also makes an appearance, but it isn’t clear how much we’ll be seeing him.

I did also notice how strongly the Fremen-eye blue stands out in the otherwise very sepia-toned environment. And is it just me, or have the Harkonnen gone even more monochrome than in Part One?

At this writing, the release date is set to March 1, 2024.

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Random Thoughts on The Marvels

Erik

In no particular order. Spoiler warnings in effect.

Erik’s random thoughts:

  • The beginning and ending of this movie felt rushed. The beginning had to get the audience caught up on a bunch of streaming shows that not everyone has seen. The ending felt like it ran out of time to properly wrap up both story elements and emotional beats. As ridiculous and entertaining as the musical number on Aladna was, maybe a minute or two of that runtime could have been better spent on other parts of the movie.
  • Even though we have watched most of the relevant streaming shows (we’ve seen WandaVision and Ms. Marvel; we gave up on Secret Invasion after they fridged their third woman in as many episodes), I still felt as though I was missing out on some backstory. It’s like there’s half a movie we all missed somewhere along the way.
  • Iman Vellani is fantastic as Kamala Khan / Ms. Marvel, and she plays brilliantly off both Brie Larson and Teyonah Parris. Carol Danvers may be drivingf this movie’s story, but Kamala is its big, goofy, awkwardly earnest teenaged heart.
  • I think I counted two white men with speaking roles—three at a stretch if you include the stinger (and not getting into complicated questions about South Asian identities). At the same time, the movie doesn’t make any kind of issue about gender or race; people are just people. We’ve come a long way from the blazing white maleness of Iron Man, even from movies like Black Panther and Captain Marvel which showcased the diversity of their representation and made it a feature of the movie. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is better for reaching a place where a movie full of people who aren’t white men is unremarkable.
  • With Guardians of the Galaxy, Thor: Ragnarok, and now The Marvels, the MCU is fully committing to the idea that space is big, colorful, weird, and often kind of silly, and I love it.
  • It was great to see the heroes find their strength not by force of will or emotional epiphany but with practice, and especially by practicing together.
  • Having flerken kittens tentacle-eat people as an evacuation strategy was already pretty funny, but setting it to a song from Cats was comedy genius.

Eppu’s random thoughts:

  • It’s too bad that I’ve never read any Carol Danvers stories. It seems there’s a lot of potential in the character—or a lot of comic book storylines that could’ve been tapped—but for some reason she hasn’t gotten another movie for herself; hardly any time at all, in fact, even in the movies that she has been in.
  • Like MCU’s Peter Parker (Tom Holland), the new Ms. Marvel Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) actually feels like a teenager. Good job writing and acting that aspect. (So good, in fact, that we almost gave up on Ms. Marvel the series.) Also Khan’s mother Muneeba (Zenobia Shroff) is a treasure!
  • It’s DELIGHTFUL that we had a proper training montage! I was so satisfied to see how exactly the Marvels figured out how to take advantage of their inadvertent swapping-places-snafu, even to the extent of tagging in and out while juggling.
  • I guess it’s an indication of how few women I’m used to seeing in the MCU that I kept being astonished at how many female characters we got not only to see but to hear. (“She got lines! And she got lines, too!”)
  • Teyonah Parris as Monica Rambeau felt the most one-dimensional of the three protagonists. Apart from still suffering from Auntie Carol abandoning her in her childhood, what did she have going on in her life? Not much, as I recall. (Well, work, but don’t they all have that.)
  • In the MCU, there’s a distinct testosterone-and-big-guns strain (e.g., the Avengers and Iron Man movies), another that’s kookier but mostly sticks with humans (Ant-Man, Doctor Strange), and a third that’s waaaay out there (Guardians of the Galaxy, Thor: Ragnarok). I used to think there’s room for all kinds of takes, from serious to silly, but at least in The Marvels the different veins seem almost to quarrel. The result is a mix where the various styles pull in different directions and don’t quite cohere. I would’ve wanted to see a higher quality, more polished movie. Perhaps the writers are still recuperating from the cumulative effects of the pandemic and the Hollywood writer’s strike. (I know I haven’t bounced back all the way yet, and I didn’t even have to strike.)

Image: Screenshot from The Marvels via IMDb

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