I'm a writer/editor who's been at the site since 2015. I cover politics, weird history, video games and... well, anything really. Keep it breezy, keep it light, keep it straightforward.
Regardless of your opinions of the quality of Zack Snyder's movies, you can't deny that the 2021 release of the Snyder Cut of Justice League will be an interesting experiment. It's exceedingly rare for a director who's been removed from a film to be able to go back and make the version they intended - even more so when doing it requires a budget up of to $30 million. On top of all that, it requires a major studio to admit that they were wrong, which doesn't often happen.
Last week I tuned in for Zack Snyder's Man of Steel livestream and discovered a newfound appreciation for the movie. Henry Cavill's conflicted but righteous take on Superman has aged very well and his character arc is developed further in the Ultimate Edition of Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice. Cavill's good work here made it a shame that for years it appeared that the last we'd see of his Superman would be in Justice League. This forced-cheery take on Supes, complete with PS2 level CGI and that upper lip did a grave disservice to the hard work put in before.
It's been two years since Solo: A Star Wars Story hit cinemas and killed off Disney's plans to release a Star Wars movie every year. The spinoff was a production nightmare, generated hundreds of thousands of words of bad press for the Mouse House and Lucasfilm, received tepid reviews and, most importantly, it was an unexpected flop. In the wake of that, the studio quickly cancelled their in-development Star Wars spinoff movies Boba Fett and Obi-Wan and repurposed them as Disney+ shows.
Guess who's back in town? The Boys. The first season of Garth Ennis' superhero takedown was a smash hit for Amazon Prime and garnered some of the best ratings the network has ever had. Its success was well-deserved, too, with the show taking some timely pot-shots at superhero movies and celebrity culture in general. The first season ended on a big cliffhanger for Karl Urban's Billy Butcher, and I can't wait to see what's coming next.
J.K. Rowling might have hundreds of millions of dollars and be one of the most beloved authors in the world, but I don't envy her for having to follow-up the Harry Potter series. Since that finished, her literary output has been consciously separate from it, going so far as to publish under the pen-name Robert Galbraith and release mystery books targeted at adults without fantastical elements.
Justice League was intended to be a mere stopping off point in what might have been the most epic cinematic superhero adventure ever. Zack Snyder's original plan was to launch the DCEU with Man of Steel, establish other heroes in Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, bring them together in Justice League, and then have them face off against the Apokalyptian God of all Evil, Darkseid in sequels. This storyline would have meant Justice League's big bad Steppenwolf was a mere scout for his sinister master, with the 'Knightmare' sequence in Batman V Superman teasing what might have eventually come to screens.
I don't know what I'd have done without Netflix during the lockdown. From new talking points like Tiger King and The Last Dance, to older stuff I missed out on like Hannibal and Marianne, it's kept me extremely entertained during this strange time. More than the other streaming networks, Netflix also manages to release new stuff almost every day, highlighting interesting titles to check out. And today, May 27th, is no different, as Netflix has just added three new movies and one docuseries that should get everyone talking.