ThaOGDreamWeaver

I await with mild dread the first podcast series (or several) based on zero evidence and 90% hearsay, in a bitesize 8-minute format with 20 minutes of ads tacked on the end.

I'd concur on that. Not to mention releasing a budget that's inflated to show how Big And Important A Studio We Are backfires when you have a Morbius-level bomb. Budget is not and has never been the best indicator of how good or creative a movie is. On the other hand, being able to produce amazing flicks with a half-dozen mates and a one camera (occasionally nailed to a plank) doesn't just inspire a sense of pride: it's good training for when someone does give you the big bucks, and you don't waste them. Wildly tangential, self-promotional side note: one of the things I was doing in Whollyodd was trying to establish an online film school. (Unfortunately I no longer have the laptop those files were on and only backed up my contracts and such, or I'd put it back together). If you think you could do better than the Marvel or Lucasfilm crew (and by the way, you may be reading this on a device with a better digital camera than Phantom Menace was shot on), here's some light reading that might help. Gotta Have It: Inside Guerrilla Filmmaking - Spike Lee Rebel Without A Crew - Robert Rodriguez Guerrilla Filmmakers' Handbook - Chris Jones and Genevieve Jolliffe Make Your Own Damn Movie! - Lloyd Kaufman The Total Filmmaker - Jerry Lewis Yes, THAT Jerry Lewis. Whatever your opinion on his flicks, Jerry opted out of the studio system and built his own production company, made his own tools (inventing things like video rushes) and did what he wanted in a way that cuts through the garbage. Then wrote the whole lot down for other filmmakers to borrow ideas from, and taught classes at USC - including a young chap called Spielberg. It's back in print for the first time in ages. And while tech has moved on - you can buy or download tools he would have killed for - it's still a refreshingly BS-free guide to Getting Stuff Done.

If you know, you know. (And stop eating those crayons in the back there, Marine.)

Flesh For Lulu - Siamese Twist

The next one on the slate is the Mando & Grogu movie: it'll be interesting to see whether these two characters can put butts on seats. (Personally I'd rather have had the full series - well, if Favreau can avoid doing a Jack Black bottle episode again, which was just weird). And then there's the sequel-sequel movie New Jedi Order for 2026: but still no script or anything in the can. Writer is George Nolfi, which doesn't give me good vibes: his best work was the enjoyably weird Adjustment Bureau, but other than that it's been a weak sequel (Ocean's 12), some light surgery (Bourne Ultimatum), a Netflix oddity (Spectral) and short-lived spy series Allegiance. One that's flown under the radar a bit. Patty Jenkins left to do Wonder Woman 3 (WHY?) when Lucasfilm ran into scheduling problems in the pandemic. But with the pivot to DCEU, Rogue Squadron is back on the menu. And if it lives up to billing - an action-heavy, mostly-space-wizard-free Top Gun-in-Space deal - I wanna see that.

Eh. It's not really a flop. Neither is it anywhere near a hit. It's a fairly average popcorn flick that had pretensions of being Manchurian Candidate and didn't pull it off. Is that going to end Anthony Mackie's Marvel career? Hell no. (And if his pet project Quantumania didn't give Kevin Feige the boot, this one sure ain't gonna.) But in the current economic climate, you're going to have to do a lot better than average to drag people's butts to the 'plex.

It generally doesn't. Marketing and promo is the responsibility of the distributor(s) and not part of a flick's overall budget, happens after the flick wraps, and can go on for months. Even though in this case Disney is the primary distro, that's still a different company to Marvel Studios who made the flick. So cue even more Hollywood Accounting magical cross-charging shenanigans between Disney, Marvel, the Marvel sub-LLC that made the flick, the various international distros, ad agencies... you name it. As a rule of thumb, marketing budget is supposed to be half as much again as your original production. If we take that as read, BNW would have spent another $90m to market the movie, for a grand total of $270m. But honestly, Superbowl spot aside, I've not seen that much activity for it. I've seen it described in trade press as "a successful viral campaign", which roughly translates as "it's done okay for a flick that's had jack-all money spent on punting it." By comparison, Endgame's marketing spend was a little more than half ($200m-ish on top of the $390m production budget), while The Marvels thankfully "only" dropped another $75m to $100m-ish more over the $270m production.

The Skids - Into The Valley

Seems fair. I seem to very vaguely remember, back in the day, that a Nemesis system was going to be part of the game and was one of the major project threads… though I remember it being one persistent character who would show up in random missions and special arcs, adapting to your playstyle and powers. Seems like too good an idea to waste.

Laurie Johnson - Theme from The Professionals

Edgar Winter Group - Free Ride

Command & Conquer Red Alert - Hell March

So, farewell then to a fine detective, a great basketball coach, a submarine commander, rogue film producer… …and, of course, the ruler of Australia and greatest criminal mind of our time. Not to mention by all accounts a thoroughly nice bloke in person with a phenomenal memory for everyone he'd work with, from crew and craft services up... ...well, unless you hacked him off by not learning your lines. One person who gave him an awesome writeup was Mel Brooks. Gene was mates with Gene Wilder, found out about Young Frankenstein while they were playing tennis, and asked if there was any way he could sneak in a cameo. With Gene being pretty much the biggest star of the time, there's no way they could pay him more than scale. But he just wanted to do it. And this is the scene Mel gave him, alongside Peter Boyle... though the last line is Gene's ad-lib. And if it's a slightly abrupt cut to static on the sound, it's because that broke Mel and the rest of the crew.

Dropkick Murphys - Ten Times More

David Zaslav strikes again... Monolith (makers of one of my all-time favourites, No-One Lives Forever, as well as many other decent titles like F.E.A.R.), PlayerFirst (the fun if flawed MultiVersus) and WB San Diego will all be shuttered, with any live servers getting rapidly sunsetted. The upcoming Wonder Woman game, which has been in dev for 3+ years, is getting Batgirl'd as a tax loss. WB will concentrate on core franchises - the Mortal Kombat, LOTR and H***y P****r titles (despite MK1 and the HP sportsball game being responsible for a lot of the underperformance, along with Kill The Justice League.) Honestly think WB wouldn't know what to do with a creative team if they bit them on the backside.

Trek lore is that humans spread from the Earth and encountered aliens... well, as alien as 60s prosthetics and makeup would allow - and either teamed up with them or fought them as part of the Federation. So you see a lot more of them. Wars lore is that humanity arose on the old Core Worlds - Coruscant claimed to be the original homeworld, but they're snotty buggers - and then sent out gen-ships and sleeper ships, either cutting deals with or just overrunning local species to set up outposts. (Darth Plagueis the Wise considered humanity to be the most adaptable species, not least because of their sheer, dumb bloody-mindedness to succeed in the face of suffering. And therefore rather useful to the Sith.) But beyond the lore, the famously grumpy* Tony Gilroy is famously not a massive Wars or sci-fi fan, and wanted to tell a human drama story using the Wars toybox. With that in mind, it's unlikely aliens (even Hera or Zeb) are likely to make an appearance, as it would take the audience a little more work to connect with them. *Every writer has their own favourite vox auctoris character - and they're usually easy to spot as they'll get the best speeches. Tony's was Kino Loy.

$290m worldwide would be a pretty good haul for most movies, but a wide release with $180m+ of budget spent upfront… not great. If they run a similar longtail into April/May, it’s likely to finish on par with Quantumania at $450m to $500m. Not a bomb, but nowhere near expectations. I get the feeling the movie didn’t quite know what it wanted to be. The extensive reshoots (introducing a whole new character arc - not that I’d ever complain about more Giancarlo on screen…) would give the lie to that. Dodgy, half-finished CGI and a rather clunky setup for the Red Hulk finale didn’t help. Which suggests that the Prez might have been a stronger antagonist at one point, or Tim Blake Nelson’s Leader character got shredded in the edit suite. (I appreciate Tim deciding to go with practical prosthetics for this one so he could act and have cast reactions, but… couldn’t they afford one of Rick Baker’s apprentices?)

Steve Earle - The Revolution Starts Now

Here. We. Go. Arright, here we go:

Roberta Flack - The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face (2006 Remaster) ❤️‍🔥

"Vince was right. Dammit." Fun little interview EPK about coming back to these characters, how they've evolved between the two series, and doing Proper Serious Acting in a cape series.

EPICA - The Ghost In Me (Danse Macabre)

Enigma - Sadeness (part 1)

Skerryvore - Take My Hand (Live at Hoolie) 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿