zslane

Actors and directors are given some leeway, but Feige keeps everything and everyone on a fairly tight creative leash. It's why the MCU has been so successful commercially, but it is also why some creatives quit (like Edgar Wright). The press likes to play up the artistic stamp each director puts on their movie, but its not like Feige lets them play auteur and do whatever they want with the piece of the MCU they're responsible for delivering to him. Of the actors, RDJ probably wields the most power, even over many directors I imagine, but I doubt any of the others are allowed to have as loud an artistic voice as him. When they are "asked for their suggestions," that's Feige throwing them a bone and playing Nice Dad. But believe me, any suggestion that might compromise his vision for the MCU would be firmly rejected, you can be sure of that. At the end of the day these are his movies, and everyone inside Marvel Studios--and everyone working with them/him--knows it.

He'll be the new personality for all his devices, replacing Jarvis. Pepper Potts will never want to go home, or activate her armor ever again...

I suspect RDJ's ego is far needier than his bank account.

The death of Cap seems highly probable given how big a deal that was in the comics. The death of Iron Man would be a new thing, not seen in the comics, and is hard to imagine given how much RDJ loves to play him in other people's movies.

That last image would be "Squirrel and Deer". Close, but no cigar.

The character isn't that interesting to me, nor is the espionage thriller genre that interesting to me. Plus, ScarJo does nothing for me as an actress. Having said that, if it does get made, I'll see it because it's an MCU movie (and at this point I'm an MCU completist), but it'll be a rental for me for sure.

I think the so-called "problems" with bringing mutants into the MCU are nonsense issues raised by journalists who have to fill their word quota for the day and have nothing of substance to talk about. They seem to forget that characters as different in tone from the Avengers as Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and the Punisher all co-exist quite comfortably in the MCU. The X-Men live in the same comic book continuity as the Avengers and Spider-Man; there is no reason whatsoever they can't live in the same cinematic universe as those characters as well.

It will be interesting to see if Black Panther can knock Deadpool off its throne for biggest February opening. Most pundits are saying it won't ($187M is an awfully tall mountain to climb).

I was thinking the same thing. Hopefully, by the time they get around to such a movie the government will have approved the purchase of those Fox assets and all the necessary legal paperwork will have been signed. Bear in mind that "getting back the Fantastic Four" from Fox doesn't mean what most people think it means. Fox doesn't actually own the license to the Fantastic Four, they only own a contract with the production company that does own that license. In effect, Disney merely acquires that contract, but I suspect there will need to be some reformulation (and re-negotiation) of the contract before Disney can use those characters.

The SJWs are the ones making the loudest fuss about it on YouTube and social media. People like me, who love strong female heroes even more than strong male heroes but don't feel the need to make a crusade about it, eagerly await any and all such movies without ranting online about how morally corrupt Hollywood is for not doing more of it. I mean, Hollywood is morally corrupt, don't get me wrong, but what separates a fan from an SJW is the extent to which they try to make these things into great social imperatives.

Because this is the Internet, and it is often difficult to be argumentative and contrarian without making false assumptions, oversimplifying someone's point, misrepresenting someone's point, propping up straw men, and otherwise arguing against something nobody is arguing for just to have something to say.

Oh there's a demand, no doubt about it. However, I think that demand is wildly exaggerated, in no small part because the call to make a good espionage thriller starring Black Widow is conflated with the call to make more comics-based movies with female title leads. I'm simply not convinced that doing the former helps the cause of the latter to the extent that the SJWs want to believe it does.

I sort of look at this new trilogy with the same wistful disappointment that I feel for the Iron Fist show. So much potential, and so many resources wasted on the wrong story. Both have some good characters, but they can't overcome the fact that they are stuck in a story very few fans expected (or wanted...or liked).

I agree LL, and I would also say that expectations for all of those were correspondingly low going into their respective productions. But the Black Widow movie has acquired a false (IMO) sense of pent-up demand simply because it features a female lead character. Proponents of this movie (not here necessarily, but out in YouTube-land and social media at large) seem to see a correlation between Wonder Woman's success and Black Widow's potential success, which I just don't agree with. I predict that a Black Widow movie will only do about as well as Ant-Man, and that's accounting for the positive reputation of both Marvel as a brand and Scarlett as an actress.

The evil Kryptonians from season 1 and the Daxamites from season 2 all wore drab, black suits too. Seems to be a common villain costume motif on the CW.

But which walker do you choose? You only have one shot at a kamikaze run. Was it clear from the pilot's seat which walker had the command staff on board? Was there any guarantee that Hux and/or Kylo Ren were even present?

The way I see it, not all "superhero" movies starring female title leads have the same commercial potential. I mean, anyone who thinks they can look at Wonder Woman as an example of what to expect, commercially speaking, from a Black Widow movie will be gravely disappointed when the box office returns roll in. Making a Black Widow film doesn't feel like a move aimed at making a lot of money (which is what movie studios are in the business of doing). It feels like a move aimed at appeasing a small, very vocal segment of SJWs who have been using YouTube and social media to great effect in shaping the narrative regarding what should be done to fix the problem of female under-representation in superhero movies. Unfortunately for Marvel, when it comes to female characters, I feel that DC has a bit of a leg up on them. Wonder Woman, Batgirl, Supergirl, and Harley Quinn are more poised to exploit their pop culture icon potential than any female characters in Marvel's stable. Marvel must do their usual thing of swimming against the current and turning obscure characters into beloved icons. So far they have Black Widow, Jessica Jones, Valkyrie, and (coming up) Capt. Marvel to show for their efforts. I don't think it is an exaggeration to say that Wonder Woman overshadows them all. A Black Widow movie just feels like a bit of a desperation play to me; an attempt to appear "relevant" in the social-media-driven gender wars that has overtaken the conversation about Hollywood right now.

I think Finn knew he was only buying them some time to escape; he wasn't buying them a secure base from which to operate permanently.

Braniac 5 and Braniac 8 are both portrayed as blue in the cartoons, which as you pointed out, is probably where they drew the designs from for Supergirl. I suspect they figure more viewers know the cartoon version than know the comics version.

They were probably afraid to make him look too much like a Kree.

The chop damage type suggests that maybe we also need a grind damage type. After all, once characters graduate from axes to chainsaws, chop and slice just won't do...

I see two problems: the drab, black costume (a few colorful highlights are not enough to make up for this, IMO), and the helmet. In the comics, Wasp never wore a helmet. It's an odd choice for the movie because covering up Evangeline Lilly's face seems like the last thing you want to do. And the only reason I can think of for shoving her into a helmet is to make it consistent with Scott's costume. Or to meet some bogus standard of "realism". Both reasons are lame and inconsistent with the source material.

I liked the episode too. Reign's costume, while a little goofy, does a good job of disguising that it is Samantha underneath it all. Maybe I was imagining things, but Melissa Benoist looked to me like she was early in her first trimester of pregnancy or something. I only say this because she has always been conspicuously thin and fit (made obvious by her typical work attire this season), and in this episode she was looking, um, fuller around the face and other areas of her body. Plus, loose, baggy clothing is usually a dead giveaway that production is trying to hide an actress' pregnancy. I tried to see if it was detectable when she was dressed as Supergirl, but I couldn't quite tell. I guess we'll know for sure if she goes back to work (at CatCo) next episode.

Technically speaking Disney does not yet own any of Fox's assets. The purchase remains subject to government approval, which is estimated to take around 18 months. It is even conceivable that the deal could be disallowed all together. Let's not get too far ahead of ourselves.

That's true, but only militaries conduct courts martial. If Starfleet had not been a military organization, then Lt. Cmdr Spock would not have been tried by a court martial in The Menagerie. In fact, it could be argued that the Federation would never have empowered any other type of organization to establish a service order with so extreme a sentence as General Order 7.