Not that anyone ever had any doubts, but James Gunn's Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 was a smashing success. Reviews weren't quite as strong as the ones its predecessor found itself with, but the box office business that the sequel did, and continues to do, is mighty impressive. Currently, it sits at a hefty $750 million worldwide, which means you can bet that Marvel is eager to assemble Star-Lord and co. for another adventure. And while that may very well be the case, it appears as if the studio is placing their focus elsewhere, first.
Sony's Spider-Man universe is a curious thing. Already announced are spinoffs such as Venom and Silver & Black (featuring Silver Sable and Black Cat), and while they both sound promising so far, there's just one problem: neither of them will include Peter Parker. That's because the character is busy over in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the studio is unable to use him. For the time being, at least.
Universal has some very ambitious plans for their monster movies. That was made pretty clear this week when they finally made the whole thing official by announcing the Dark Universe. Set to be a shared cinematic universe not too different from what we’ve seen with Marvel and DC – except that it involves monsters instead of superheroes – it kicks off with The Mummy next month and will also include projects like The Invisible Man and Bride of Frankenstein, among many, many others.
Imagine for a very brief moment that you’re a Warner Bros. executive. You’re sitting in a plush office, watching as the first wave of reviews label Wonder Woman to be the “best DCEU movie” to date. What do you do? Crank the marketing machine up to 11, of course. And that’s exactly what WB has chosen to do.
Though studios will usually pull out all the stops to keep movie's plot info under wraps for as long as possible, tie-in merchandise is often responsible for giving audiences a heads up on certain things. LEGO sets, in particular, tend to spoil set pieces and minor character details, and these Star Wars: The Last Jedi toys are no different.
Deadpool took the world by storm last year, charging into theatres with its R rating in hand and smashing all sorts of box office records, proving that studios don't need to play it safe in order to rake in huge profits from their comic book movies. It's opened the floodgates for all sorts of projects that otherwise wouldn't have seen the light of day and as Fox continues to build its X-Men cinematic universe, the Merc with a Mouth will no doubt play a key role moving forward.
Justice League Dark has been having a bit of a hard time getting off the ground. Once set to be directed by Guillermo del Toro, the project eventually fell into Doug Liman's lap, at which point, it looked like things were good to go. However, the Edge of Tomorrow helmer shocked us all just this week when he announced that he'd be walking from the film, citing scheduling conflicts as the reason for his departure.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is rapidly expanding, with more and more characters being introduced with each passing film. Not only that, but with the lid being completely blown off the cosmic side of this world in recent years, even more doors have now been opened up for various superheroes and villains to make their big screen debuts.
As we inch closer and closer to Wonder Woman, there's a sense of positivity starting to build around the DC Extended Universe. The first wave of reactions to the film were pretty promising and with recent announcements of projects like Nightwing and Batgirl causing much excitement amongst fans, it's beginning to look like things might be about to turn around for the struggling franchise.
