Cathy Yan's Birds of Prey may have flopped at the box office and become the DCEU's lowest-grossing installment by well over $100 million, if you don't count pandemic-era releases Wonder Woman 1984 and The Suicide Squad that is, but it's already found long-lasting life as a cult favorite.
As well as his famed penchant for blowing sh*t up in the most spectacular possible fashion, another hallmark of Michael Bay's career has seen him take actors that you wouldn't typically imagine as action heroes and place them front and center in a pyrotechnic extravaganza.
The pandemic continues to have a devastating effect on the theatrical industry, with business still in the doldrums almost eighteen months after cinemas around the world were first forced to lock their doors, and based on how things have been going it'll be next year before things stand any real chance of returning to normal.
If Carl Weathers is to be believed, and he's really given us no reason not to, Season 3 of The Mandalorian is set to kick off production in a matter of weeks. We'd heard rumors that Din Djarin's latest batch of adventures were already in front of cameras, but that turned out to be wide of the mark when Lucasfilm were waiting for Obi-Wan Kenobi to wrap up and vacate the studio's soundstages before the next Disney Plus Star Wars series moved in.
On paper, Reminiscence had all of the ingredients to offer solid counter-programming to the raft of spectacle-driven blockbusters that dominated the marketplace during the summer months. Based on a completely original concept written and directed by Westworld co-creator Lisa Joy in her feature directorial debut, there was plenty of potential in the project.
It'll be curious to see whether or not The Marvels comes in for the same sort of pre-emptive backlash that greeted Captain Marvel, most of which seemed to be aimed solely at star Brie Larson. For whatever reason, the movie was subjected to a concerted trolling campaign, which clearly amounted to nothing when Carol Danvers' origin story rocketed to well over a billion dollars at the box office.
As the most commercially successful franchise of all-time, it's not a shock that the Marvel Cinematic Universe is massively popular in China, the world's fastest-growing market for cinema. The last thirteen installments in the series have each earned in excess of $100 million in the nation, even if there's no sign yet of Black Widow, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings or Eternals making it past the censorship board.