Among the many "announced" DC films supposedly being on their way in the next few years - and there sure are a lot of them - none can be too sure of which will actually see the light of day. But whereas I'm less inclined to place my chips on, say, The New Gods or Cyborg, the upcoming Joker origin movie can lay claim to something that not many others on the alleged slate can: an actual green light given by the studio.
It may have taken seemingly forever to get the World's Mightiest Mortal up on the big screen, but we'll all be shuffling into theaters to see Shazam! before you know it. Though the average moviegoer may not think it, the titular character has been around since 1939. That's right, he's almost as old as Superman - and even outsold Big Blue for a time back in the Golden Age!
After taking in Batman Ninja not long ago, I must say that a palette cleanser is in order – one which looks like it’ll arrive soon enough in the form of The Death of Superman. Having made that bold statement, you may wonder how I can have nearly blind confidence in something, but the folks who put together the films making up the standard DC Universe animated line have very rarely let me down.
By now, I'm sure that many of you reading this have, like me, found yourselves bewildered whenever attending a showing of an R-rated movie, only to find it populated with young children. Though I may not be a parent myself, I know better than to take a five-year-old to see something like IT or Saw.
Proving that Halloween isn't the only film franchise capable of returning to its roots by seemingly disregarding reboots, MGM is ready to go ahead with RoboCop Returns. And much like Michael Myers' next cinematic outing, we'll soon see one of Detroit's greatest protectors showcased in a flick serving as a sequel to the original (well, kind of). It's confusing to moviegoers at large, sure, but I'll take it.
Even though we receive at least a half dozen superhero films on a yearly basis these days, the fact of the matter is that we owe a great debt to director Richard Donner and all involved in the production of Superman: The Movie back in the late 1970s. Before then, a blockbuster of that scale centered on a comic book character was simply unheard of, so to think that a genre was handily legitimized with such an effort is indeed commendable.
When it comes to Mortal Kombat on film, those of us who've long loved the franchise have been enduring a dry spell since 1997 - well, that is unless you count the TV and web series that followed. Still, Tinseltown has failed to test its might for 21 years now, so it's high time the ball got rolling.
If anything, the season finale we witnessed this past May preserved The Flash's annual tradition of going out on crazy cliffhangers. After all, if you're going to match happenings such as Flashpoint and Barry Allen's exile into the Speed Force, then why not have his daughter from the future, Nora, show up to let us all know that she also enjoys messing with the timeline?
One of the many things I liked about Deadpool 2 and its predecessor was that while they were technically solo films, each opened up the veritable treasure trove that is the X-Men mythos in ways no other picture had before. Really, before the Merc with a Mouth became a headliner, True Believers had been dying to see the likes of Cable and Domino on the silver screen for what felt like an eternity. Not only that, but we received more comic book accurate versions of Colossus and Juggernaut as well!
Knowing how superheroes dominate the box office and television airwaves these days, you'd think comic books would be flying off shelves - but that unfortunately isn't the case. In an era when Black Panther - a character previously unknown to the mainstream at large, mind you - can't translate a highly successful theatrical run into periodical sales, it may be safe to assume that not as many people care to read anymore.
