Until Deadpool 3 finally makes it into production and onto the big screen, which isn't going to be for a good couple of years yet, the Marvel Cinematic Universe will remain an exclusively PG-13 enterprise. After all, the approach has yielded tens of billions in box office dollars and a bulletproof status as the most popular franchise in history, so there's literally no need for Kevin Feige and his myriad of collaborators to rock the boat too much.
The idea of sitting through a four-hour movie is a daunting task no matter what it is, and there's a reason why barely any theatrical releases run that long. Back in the day, intermissions used to be all the rage, allowing patrons to get a brief respite from the action to head to the bathroom or pick up some extra snacks, but it's not been a feature of the industry for a long time now.
The only surprising part of the news breaking a few months back that Tim Burton was working on The Addams Family is that it took so long to happen. The filmmaker's entire career appears to have been building to this moment, and there aren't many pre-existing properties out there that feel like a better fit for his sensibilities.
Despite enjoying a lengthy and successful career that's spanned over 35 years, brought no shortage of critical acclaim and landed him an Academy Award win from five nominations and a reputation as one of the defining filmmakers of his generation, Spike Lee has never exactly been the person that the major studios turn to when looking for someone to tackle a big budget blockbuster.
The Kelvin timeline of Star Trek might have comfortably brought in the biggest box office returns in the long and illustrious history of the beloved sci-fi franchise, but the films were hardly doing gangbusters in comparison to the rest of Hollywood's highest profile output. All three of them scored largely positive reviews from critics, with the average Rotten Tomatoes score of the trilogy working out to an impressive 88%, but there always seemed to be a missing ingredient holding them back from attaining a certain level of commercial success.
WarnerMedia are intent to lean on their DC properties as hard as possible when it comes to building a strong lineup of original content for HBO Max, and not all of it has to be connected to the timeline of the feature films in the same way as the Marvel Cinematic Universe's expansion onto Disney Plus.
Jared Leto's antics on the set of Suicide Squad are arguably more memorable than his actual contributions to the movies itself, although not all of the blame for his polarizing performance can be laid squarely at the actor's door, when the majority of his scenes wound up on the cutting room floor once the studio took it out of director David Ayer's hands and took over the post-production process.
It's been a long time since Mel Gibson was regarded as one of the biggest movie stars on the planet, but his recent ventures into B-tier genre cinema have thrown up plenty of massively enjoyable results over the last decade.