Detective Pikachu Writers Are Interested In A Super Smash Bros. Movie

Detective Pikachu Writers Are Interested In A Super Smash Bros. Movie

Over the weekend, Detective Pikachu opened to $58 million, the best debut ever for a video game adaptation. Couple that box office with decent, although not great, reviews and the plans for a Pokémon cinematic universe don’t seem entirely farfetch’d. Cinematic universes have team-up movies and long before 2012’s The Avengers, Nintendo was teaming up its iconic characters, including Pikachu, for a free-for-all battle in Super Smash Bros. (Pokémon aren’t entirely owned by Nintendo, but just go with me).

Super Smash Bros. would almost certainly be the biggest video game movie that could be made and the writers of Detective Pikachu would be interested in such a project, but it would have to be done in the right way. Writer Dan Hernandez explained:

I think that the key to doing anything like that is to make sure that the other introductory movies are sensational. It’d be a dream to write something like Legend of Zelda, but before you can get to that Smash Bros stage you have to write the best damn version of The Legend of Zelda that you possibly can. And the same with Mario, the same with Kirby, the same with Star Fox.

Dan Hernandez brings up a great point that may seem obvious but isn’t always. For a movie on the scale of a Super Smash Bros. to work, there would have to be multiple movies introducing the various characters to audiences prior to having them all appear onscreen together in an adaptation of Nintendo’s popular fighting game.

Basically, Dan Hernandez advocates for the MCU approach to team-up video game movies, not the DCEU one where the studio just skipped ahead to the team-up without the build up of solo films. It’s not enough to just have multiple movies introducing characters though in advance of a Super Smash Bros. movie, those introductory movies have to be good.

As Dan Hernandez told Screen Rant, Kirby and Mario and Star Fox and Link all need to have the best possible solo films to make the movie of Super Smash Bros. work. On that latter character, the writer actually seemed to be quite interested in tackling a feature film adaptation of The Legend of Zelda.

Sensational solo movies build audience investment and that’s why Avengers: Endgame worked so well, as one of Detective Pikachu’s other screenwriters, Benji Samit, explained:

Avengers: Endgame is only as good as it is because we loved all of those characters individually, so when it came together it was just magic. And I think that’s how you have to approach the Smash Bros.

I tend to agree that great solo movies and a build-up would be an absolute necessity for any attempt at a Super Smash Bros. movie. Yet, even if those prerequisites were met, it would still be a daunting task. Unlike the MCU, where all of the characters technically exist in the same universe, Super Smash Bros. is pulling from multiple, seemingly incompatible properties.

The MCU is able to impose a house style and tone that despite varying from film to film, basically allows for everything to fit together. Making a medieval warrior Link, a bounty hunter Samus and an Italian plumber Mario all exist in the same film is far more difficult. But at least animation allows for greater suspension of disbelief.

I think the focus should first be on getting good live-action movies of these characters, without any eye towards a team-up film. After all, we may be 20+ years removed from 1993’s Super Mario Bros., but video game movies by and large haven’t advanced that far in quality since then.

Still, the thought of a Nintendo Cinematic Universe building to a Super Smash Bros. movie is intriguing. Such a thing would be a ways off, if it ever happens, but a Super Smash Bros. movie is just one possibility raised by Detective Pikachu.

With the dam possibly hopefully finally breaking on good video game movies, these kinds of discussions will hopefully become less wishful thinking and more realistic speculation.

Detective Pikachu is now playing. Be sure you know what ticket to buy before going to see it and check out our 2019 release schedule for all the biggest movies headed to theaters this year.

See What Anthony Mackie Could Look Like As Captain America

See What Anthony Mackie Could Look Like As Captain America

Spoilers ahead for Avengers: Endgame

It's almost hard to believe, but Avengers: Endgame has been in theaters for nearly a month. The Russo Brothers crafted a complicated narrative, and the blockbuster's runtime was jam packed with plot twits, cameos, and satisfying conclusions. This was especially true when it came to Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson.

After the Avengers defeated Thanos forever, Captain America traveled back in time to return the Infinity Stones and Mjolnir to their proper place in the multiverse. He returned as an old man, having lived a full life in the past with Peggy Carter. Steve Rogers also gave Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) his shield, passing on the mantle of Captain America. Check out what Mackie might look like as the Cap below.

Does anyone else have chills? Sam Wilson has had a strong tenure in the MCU starting in Phase Two, and he's expected to take the spotlight in the shared universe's mysterious future.

This awesome image comes to us from Instagram user Jakub Maslowski, who regularly posts renderings of Marvel's finest heroes. The art shows Sam Wilson in full Captain America regalia, complete with the Vibranium shield. But he's also got some of Falcon's regular gear, including his iconic goggles and (most importantly) those wings.

Sam Wilson is obviously a great choice to take on the role of Captain America, but it should be interesting to see how Marvel Studios ultimately handles this transition-- especially related to the character's fighting style. Falcon has always relied heavily on his high-tech wings, which give him flight and an array of weapons. But once he becomes the new Captain, will he ditch the wings?

Of course, there is more than one artist imagining what Anthony Mackie's Captain America could look like. Check it out.

This new image, also from Instagram, is a bit more simple. Rather than crafting any new imagery, the artist simply used previous images of Falcon and Sebastian Stan's Winter Soldier to get an idea of what Sam Wilson's character might look like under a different identity.

Related: The Russo Brothers Confirm A Major Captain America Theory We Had After Avengers: Endgame

One of the unexpected character pairings to come out of Phase Three has been Bucky and Sam Wilson. They both operate primarily under the Captain America franchise, and are deeply connected to Chris Evans' Steve Rogers. The two supporting characters really hit it off in Captain America: Civil War, and it was a dynamic that also hit with audiences.

Sam and Bucky were given some more choice moments in Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame, with the two included the film's final sequence. It's a relationship that is expected to be explored in the MCU's future, especially their Disney+ series Falcon & Winter Soldier. It's also expected that Anthony Mackie will lead the Captain America franchise in Phase Four, hopefully with Sebastian Stan's Bucky in tow.

For now, we'll have to wait for Marvel Studios to reveal its plans for the future. Although smart money says that won't happen until Spider-Man: Far From Home arrives in theaters first.

Avengers: Endgame is in theaters, including Anthon Mackie's Falcon. In the meantime, check out our 2019 release list to plan your next trip to the movies.

Suicide Squad 2 May Be Adding John Cena In Fun Turn Of Events

Suicide Squad 2 May Be Adding John Cena In Fun Turn Of Events

Although he’s still on the professional wrestling circuit, John Cena has also built quite the acting career over the last decade, most recently starring in movies like Blockers and Bumblebee. Now there’s word that he may finally make the jump to the superhero genre with the upcoming Suicide Squad 2, a.k.a. The Suicide Squad.

Word’s come in that John Cena is currently in talks to join Suicide Squad 2, although no details were provided in Variety’s report about who he would be playing. Assuming a deal is finalized, Cena would be the second new actor to join the sequel, following Idris Elba, who was originally going to take over as Deadshot from Will Smith, but will now play a new character instead.

If John Cena does end up joining Suicide Squad 2, he won’t be the only WWE superstar lending his acting talents to this franchise. Since 2014, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has been attached to play Shazam adversary Black Adam, and Johnson recently said that he expects the Black Adam movie to begin filming in a year. However, given that Suicide Squad 2 already has a release date and is reportedly scheduled to begin principal photography in the fall, one would imagine Cena will make his DCEU debut before Johnson.

Although John Cena was among the many actors that were rumored to being looked at to play Shazam before Zachary Levi scored the role, this Suicide Squad 2 news definitely sounds like more of a sure thing, though we’ll have to wait and see if he actually signs on. In any case, Cena showed he has blockbuster chops last winter playing Agent Jack Burns in Bumblebee, so Suicide Squad 2 would be an appropriate step up.

It’s also worth noting that if Suicide Squad 2 is tonally similar to its predecessor, and that’ll likely be the case given that James Gunn is writing and directing, then it’ll also be infused with comedy, and John Cena has shown he can be funny through Trainwreck, Sisters, Blockers and more. As for who Cena could play in Suicide Squad 2, I originally suspected characters like Blockbuster and King Shark might be candidates. However, Variety's Justin Kroll added that while not confirmed, he's heard Cena would play Peacemaker, a role originally intended for Dave Bautista.

In addition to Idris Elba and the potential inclusion of John Cena, Suicide Squad 2 also has Margot Robbie, Jai Courtney and Viola Davis lined up to reprise Harley Quinn, Captain Boomerang and Amanda Waller, respectively. Still, it’s been repeatedly said that this movie is envisioned as more of a relaunch than a direct sequel to Suicide Squad and will feature a mostly new cast, so expect more fresh faces to be announced in the coming weeks/months.

Suicide Squad 2 opens in theaters August 6, 2021, so stay tuned to CinemaBlend for continuing coverage. In the meantime, you can learn what else is coming down the DCEU pipeline by browsing through our handy guide.

Glass’ Poor Reviews Made M. Night Shyamalan Cry

Glass’ Poor Reviews Made M. Night Shyamalan Cry

It’s never easy to learn that something you’ve made isn’t liked by others. Director and writer M. Night Shyamalan has experienced this several times in his career, most recently with Glass, the final chapter of his Eastrail 177 trilogy that began with Unbreakable and continued with Split. In fact, Shyamalan cried upon learning that Glass was taking a critical beating back in January. As he recalled:

I was in London when I heard the U.S. reviews for Glass were poor. I was in a makeup chair for a TV show, and I cried… We’d just come back from the London screenings, which were through the roof. We had only great screenings of the movie around the world. So essentially I wasn’t prepared. I had this false sense of being a part of the group in a safe way. But boy, did I feel distraught that day.

For nearly two decades Unbreakable was a standalone feature in M. Night Shyamalan’s filmography, but the filmmaker finally revisited that world with Split, which, in typical Shaymalan twist fashion, had Bruce Willis’ David Dunn appear at the end. Like Unbreakable, Split was met with positive reception, so shortly after its release, Shyamalan announced he’d be making Glass next. The hype surrounding Glass only grew over the next two years (give or take), especially after the first trailer dropped last summer.

Unfortunately for M. Night Shyamalan, Glass didn’t receive anywhere near the same level of approval as its predecessors, ranking at 37% among critics on Rotten Tomatoes. In other words, it wasn’t a flop across the board (as The Last Airbender and After Earth basically were), but it wasn’t a critical triumph either.

Hearing that Glass wasn’t being well-received was enough to make M. Night Shyamalan shed some tears while he was promoting the movie across the pond, but he felt better once he accounted for how commercially successful it was. Elaborating on how he felt at the time during a recent lecture at NYU’s Stern School of Business (via Indiewire), Shyamalan said:

Honestly, I was feeling like, ‘Will they never let me be different without throwing me on the garbage pile?’ The feeling of worthlessness rushed me, and to be honest, it doesn’t ever really leave. But anyway, the film went on, right? It became number one in every country in the world, and it represents my beliefs.

Glass ended up making nearly $247 million worldwide off a $20 million budget, so on the money side of things, it definitely performed splendidly, although it still ended up falling short of Unbreakable and Split’s hauls. In any case, M. Night Shyamalan appears to have made peace with how things turned out on Glass, though he still acknowledged that he still gets “tired” dealing with this kind of critical reaction to his work.

M. Night Shyamalan is now working on his upcoming Apple series Servant and also has a movie called Labor of Love in development. When more details become available on either of those projects, we here at CinemaBlend will let you know about them. Glass can be purchased Blu-ray, DVD and Digital HD, and you can look through our 2019 release schedule to learn what movies are coming out later this year.

Captain America: Civil War Almost Focused A Lot More On Bucky

Captain America: Civil War Almost Focused A Lot More On Bucky

One of the biggest blockbusters of 2016, Captain America: Civil War took inspiration from Mark Millar’s 2006-2007 Marvel Comics crossover series that gave it its title, telling the story of a superhero community torn apart by philosophical differences. But it wasn’t always so. There was once an alternate version of the MCU’s third Captain America movie that originally 3 focused much more on Bucky Barnes and his journey coming out of the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Screenwriter Christopher Markus recently explained,

There were outlines where we had the Zemo plotline based around Bucky. We had that whole structure. But it wasn't so much about pitting Steve and Tony together. When Civil War rose to the surface, it fit in really nicely into that.

Sebastian Stan’s Winter Soldier certainly plays a significant part in Captain America: Civil War, but according to a recent Hollywood Reporter interview with Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely he originally had an even bigger role in the narrative. Because Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark wasn’t always a guaranteed part of the film, there was initially no conflict between him and Steve Rogers to set up, so in the absence of that storyline Bucky took center stage.

According to Markus, the plotline that existed in older outlines with Bucky still had Daniel Brühl’s Zemo has a key player, so it doesn’t sound like his story was drastically different in the development of Captain America 3. That being said, there probably were some key alterations made, such as the significance of the brainwashed super soldier killing Tony Stark's parents.

Ultimately the option of creating a big screen version of Civil War came along. The writers were able to work that iconic comics storyline in and make everything in the established Marvel Cinematic Universe fit and function as a cohesive story. Being able to do Civil War also apparently proved fortuitous for the writers, because apparently the Bucky and Zemo material wasn’t strong enough to carry the film, as screenwriter Stephen McFeely explained:

It wasn't a great enough A-plot. It became an excellent B-plot.

According to Stephen McFeely, having the focus of the film be Bucky Barnes and the story of Zemo controlling him wasn’t all that great. By shifting that story from the main focus to the B-plot was much more effective. It actually complemented the story of the conflict between Steve Rogers and Tony Stark too, by having their disagreement about the Sokovia Accords give way to a more personal dispute over what Bucky’s fate should be.

It’s hard to disagree with Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely given how well Captain America: Civil War turned out. It now stands as one of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s most beloved films, and one of the most important given how the ramifications of it reverberate throughout many of the movies that followed it. The conflict between Tony and Steve ultimately carries throughout the rest of the Phase 3 films all the way until Avengers: Endgame, proving to make Zemo one of the franchise's most successful villains.

For those who might lament not getting even more of Sebastian Stan’s Bucky Barnes in Captain America: Civil War, fear not. Bucky will star alongside Anthony Mackie’s Falcon in a new series coming to Disney+, one of many MCU series on the way.

Check out our 2019 Release Schedule to keep track of all the biggest movies headed your way this summer and for the latest superhero movie news, stay tuned to CinemaBlend.

How Spider-Man: Far From Home Can Wrap Up Marvel's Phase Three

How Spider-Man: Far From Home Can Wrap Up Marvel's Phase Three

The conclusion of Avengers: Endgame really did feel like the end of an era. The Marvel epic provided fitting closure for two of its core characters, it featured a massive battle sequence with just about every MCU character yet (hell, even Howard the Duck showed up) and could quite possibly become the highest grossing movie of all time. But Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige has stood his ground on the fact that Spider-Man: Far From Home is the last film in MCU Phase 3, not Avengers: Endgame.

It doesn’t make sense, does it? What’s our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man doing – coming in, swinging past the small ocean of nerd tears Avengers: Endgame poetically manifested in us with its ending and closing this chapter of MCU history with his own movie? But after a look at the new spoiler-y trailer for Far From Home that came out this week, it’s starting to become more clear. There are some loose ends that Endgame didn’t tie up that the next Spider-Man movie will address, thus closing out Phase 3 and the Infinity Saga. Here’s why it makes sense for the summer release to end this chapter:

The Impact of Endgame

Avengers: Endgame was so focused on Earth's Mightiest Heroes undoing Thanos’ snap and bringing closure to the stories of Tony Stark and Captain America that it glazed over one important impact of the whole situation: what’s next after the giant upheaval that killed off half the population of the universe and then brought them back? While part of living creatures will be dealing with a world back at maximum population after mourning and picking up the pieces for five years, others will be coping with the time they’ve lost and the changes to the world since they were snapped out of existence.

Spider-Man: Far From Home will need to address the situation a bit before Phase 4 can begin and framing the last MCU film through the hero’s world is a clever way for the studio to do this. As Jon Watts recently explained to Fandango, Peter Parker has the “ground-level perspective” into daily life that other heroes such as Thor or Hawkeye would have. He may be rolling with the Avengers now, but under the suit he’s just a normal kid. He still needs to go to high school… which means his movie needs to deal with the shift in dynamic of that post-Endgame.

Spider-Man: Far From Home makes sense as a Phase 3 movie because it should answer a bit of our curiosities about a changed world after the Avengers’ fiercest battle yet. Although it seems like most of Peter’s immediate friends (Ned, MJ, Flash, Betty) and Aunt May are dealing with the side of being snapped and coming back, they will come in from that unique perspective of what it’s like to come back to a world you were dusted from, whereas Endgame dealt with the people who were left alive. As audiences, we need both of those sides for the storyline to find balance about the events.

The Death of Iron Man

Since the MCU started with Iron Man, the franchise has always been rooted in Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark. Avengers: Endgame didn’t answer the question about how the franchise will move on sans Iron Man. Spider-Man: Far From Home is the perfect opportunity for the MCU to explore this, especially since Tony was established in Captain America: Civil War and Spider-Man: Homecoming as Peter’s mentor and Avengers father-figure. While as an audience we feel a bit lost about what’s next for the franchise without our favorite playboy, billionaire, philanthropist, so will Spidey.

In fact, it looks like the theme of the movie will revolve around Peter coming to terms with Tony’s great sacrifice and finding his place in the world without him being there to call up, bail him out or give him a pep talk. The trailer threw around “the new Iron Man” a couple times and will explore the hero as he tries to ignore his “great responsibility” to be a normal teenager. He can send him to voicemail, but he can’t run from Nick Fury’s call to a big mission involving the Elementals and the Multiverse.

Spider-Man: Far From Home will answer one question that Avengers: Endgame just didn’t have the time for: what’s next for the Avengers Initiative? How does it look like now? Nick Fury is calling on Spider-Man this time around, so does that mean he will be a prominent figure in the MCU now? Will he be the new Iron Man? Maybe a new dynamic all together will form within the confines of Far From Home that will wrap up and bring closure to what started with Iron Man in 2008 and give us a hint about how we move forward.

The Next MCU Saga

Another aspect of Avengers: Endgame that doesn’t make it feel like the definitive end to Phase 3 is there’s still a lot up in the air where exactly the MCU is going next. The team may have assembled and taken down their ultimate enemy when they stopped Thanos from using the Infinity Gauntlet the second time, but we don’t know enough about how that’s changed things enough to know how it will mold into the next saga. Spider-Man: Far From Home for example seems to already be giving us a hint about just why we need it to clue us in.

The latest trailer sets up the Multiverse when Nick Fury explains that the snap (although it’s unclear which one) tore a hole in our dimension and Jake Gyllenhaal’s Mysterio is from one of the alternative worlds. This new detail made it especially clear to me why Spider-Man: Far From Home is an MCU bookend. The movie is building off the events of the MCU thus far, so it can be placed in the Infinity Saga category, but it’s also opening up a portal (quite literally) into the potential of what could be to come. Will the next phase revolve around the Multiverse? The set-up for Far From Home certainly seems to hint at it.

From here, Spider-Man: Far From Home looks to be a fitting last film in Phase 3. It does seem like a lot to cover in a Spider-Man sequel, but the new trailer seems to deliver on just about every front of touching on these unanswered questions that I didn’t think it was capable of doing before, so I’m confident it will fittingly be the end of the Infinity Saga and mark the impending beginning of a new one.

Spider-Man: Far From Home will spin its web in theaters on July 2, so be sure to keep checking back with CinemaBlend for more coverage.

New Chucky Will Make A Major Change From The Original Child's Play Chucky

New Chucky Will Make A Major Change From The Original Child's Play Chucky

Sure, Game of Thrones coined the phrase, “What is dead may never die.” But that concept can also apply to just about every major horror franchise, as classic killers from Freddy to Jason appear to die, but always figure out how to return to create chaos. This is fine. Audiences WANT to spend more time with these terrifying threats. But it means that storytellers have to find fresh ways to bring the beloved horror threats back, and Child’s Play thinks it figured something out.

We are getting a new Child’s Play movie on June 21, from producers Seth Grahame-Smith and David Katzenberg. The new movie will serve as both a remake and a reboot of the classic Child’s Play franchise, which followed a doll named Chucky who was possessed by the spirit of deranged serial killer Charles Lee Ray. In the new movie, the team found a new way to revive Chucky, and detoured away from the serial-killer spirit inside of the doll.

It’s a major switch to the doll’s origin, and at a recent press event for the film, producer Grahame-Smith told CinemaBlend:

We sort of lean into more of the AI/Kaslan story and hint at a Chucky that is driven by something different than he is in the original series, when he's Charles Lee Ray and he's just a truly psychopathic killer in the body of a doll. [Also, there is] the mother/son story, the emotional component of the movie, which I feel like the movie really delivers. And then above all that, just the intensity, the gore, the fact that the movie is rated R, that it really does go there when it goes there. I think the movie looks big, is much bigger than a lot of movies that are our size - very affordable movie, we are. But we had big ambitions. Those are, I'd say, the primary things we're going for.

As the conversation continued – and also, as is made evident in the recent Child’s Play trailer that we are including below – the new Chucky is driven more by demonic Artificial Intelligence, and not by the spirit of a serial killer. This appears to give Chucky the ability to control more technology, as the new trailer appears to show him taking over drones, controlling power tools, and more.

Child’s Play producer Seth Grahame-Smith elaborated to CinemaBlend on the origin angle of Chucky in the new movie, explaining:

You're getting at the heart of, I think, what a lot of people are inherently skeeved out about AI. Does it have its own agency, or is it just a series of processes and commands and executions? The truthful answer is by the time the movie's over, I don't know. I think at the beginning of the movie, you'll see sort of briefly why this particular doll is the way that he is, and it's not every one of these dolls, right? So why is our Chucky special. And then it's going at that inherent need to make his child happy no matter what, right? To bond with him, to be with him. It starts out like you saw in the clip, very sweet. It's two characters in Chucky and in Andy that both in their own ways at that point in the movie been rejected. Andy is certainly in need of a friend, and finds one in Chucky. So that's the reason we showed you that clip, because we wanted to sort of lean into that this is a relationship that is genuine that goes off the rails in a big way. It's not just brooding, and it's not sinister from the jump. It gets there, for sure, but that I think just gets to the heart of what we're trying to do here, and why we felt like there was a why and a cultural relevance to doing a different version of this classic series.

As the conversation played out, CinemaBlend learned that Child’s Play isn’t just changing Chucky, at his core. It’s also making changes to the boy who befriends Chucky, thereby changing their relationship. Andy in this new movie is older than he was in the 1988 Child’s Play, which kind of means that he’s past the point of playing with dolls. Seth Grahame-Smith assures fans that the movie will address that immediately, and goes on to say:

He's not necessarily like super excited about this gift when he gets it. But once he realizes that this thing has his interest in his heart and mind, they grow on each other. We knew that one of the differences we wanted to do here was to ultimately put more pressure on kids having to do this than in the original movie where it's Karen and Detective Mike, primarily Detective Mike, hunting this [doll] down. And now Detective Mike is a big part of the movie. Brian Tyree [Henry] is amazing in the movie, and obviously Karen - Aubrey [Plaza] - is amazing in the movie. But that really helped us give Andy sort of a life away from mom that we could exploit for different things.

All in all, it’s sounding like the team behind the new Child’s Play went above and beyond to make their story stand apart from previous versions of the Chucky story, hoping to make improvements while also luring a fresh audience into this world. Remakes and reboots aren’t always guaranteed successes, but it sure is looking like the new Child’s Play has updated the look and feel of Chucky, as evidenced by this most recent trailer.

Child’s Play will hack and slash its way into a competitive summer blockbuster frame, arriving on June 21 where it will go toe-to-AI-toe with Toy Story 4 (a totally different story about toys with emotions), and the pending Annabelle Comes Home. The competition for the horror dollar will be intense, but because of the major changes introduced into this new Child’s Play take, we think it looks interesting enough to lure both fans of the original franchise, and newcomers looking for creative, never before seen thrills.

What do you think of the changes made to the new Child’s Play? Does it make you excited to see it? Weigh in down below in the comments section. Maybe you’ll make a new best friend while you are down there.